What is Plasma Technology and Its Advantages?

Some of the technologies that are invented go on to revolutionize processes. They will also help many industries to save money and make processes faster. It is essential for such inventions to reach maximum people in the world. The way to do this is for more companies to market these technologies. It is also essential that they are sold at affordable prices so that more companies benefit from them.

One such technology which has helped revolutionize many industries is plasma technology. The technology has found a wide variety of uses in many industries. It has been found to be one of the best methods of surface cleaning and modification. Plasma technology is widely used in many industries like microelectronics, printing, pharma, automotive, etc. The main advantage of the technology is that the process is cleaner, more accurate and cheaper.

The Uses of Plasma Technology

Cleaning of surfaces is essential in many industries. Surfaces need to be clean if it has to bond well with other materials. They must be cleaned well if glue should adhere to the surface. You need clean surfaces for printing. Earlier the cleaning was done using chemicals. These chemicals could go on to change the characteristics of the materials which is not desirable. They can also affect the surface badly while cleaning.

Another disadvantage is the cost. The amount of chemicals required for the various processes is very high. This becomes a financial strain for the industries. There is also the problem of disposing of these dangerous chemicals. They are harmful to humans and hence they should be disposed of carefully. The workers in the factory can also get affected by these chemicals. When you use plasma surface technology none of these problems arise.

Photoresist removal is one of the major uses of plasma technology in the microelectronics industry. The photoresists are used to either mask the areas from being affected or used in areas that need to be affected by light. These are used on films to form the designs in the microelectronic industry. There are positive and negative photoresists and based on what you use the area covered gets affected or remains unaffected.

SU8 is a photoresist which is widely used in the MEMS and microfluidic devices. The photoresist is preferred for its strength. Being a cross-linking polymer SU8 remains strongly bonded and unaffected. This also makes it difficult for removing the photoresist after use. It is essential to remove the SU8 photo resist without affecting the other parts. This is where plasma technology comes into play.

Use of Plasma Technology for Deeper Cleaning

Descum is a process used to remove photoresist from deep crevices. This especially used in the lithography and integrated circuit industries. In this process, the photoresist is removed completely from the crevices. Plasma is the only method that helps in the complete cleaning of the photoresist. Other cleaning methods will not clean the places formed by sharp edges.

Plasma technology is also used in many industries to modify the surface for better bonding. When the surface has modified the bonding between two dissimilar materials become easy. This happens without any change in the properties of the materials.

Today plasma technology is very widespread. There are companies which make much equipment using plasma technology. The microwave process is very popular. The equipment is available in different sizes so that companies of all sizes and even laboratories can use them. The technology is also available at very affordable prices which are a great help for small and medium industries. There are companies in Singapore catering to local as well as foreign markets.