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Innovative Plasma-Based Deposition Techniques for the Production of Functional Materials

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2022) | Viewed by 8377

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Macromolecular Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, V Holešovičkách 2, 180 00 Prague 8, Czech Republic
Interests: plasma deposition; gas-phase synthesis of nanoparticles; nanocomposites; functional coatings
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Guest Editor
Charles University, Prague Praha, Czech Republic
Interests: nanostructure of surfaces; thin films; nanoparticles; hybrid materials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is generally accepted that plasma technologies play a pivotal role in the production of high-performance functional materials that are needed in different fields, such as sensing, the food and packaging industry, medicine, agriculture, printable electronics, energy harvesting, transportation, and so on. In spite of the indisputable successes that plasma-based deposition techniques have experienced in the last decades, new demands on more time- and cost-effective processes on one hand and the necessity for better control of physicochemical or bio-related properties of produced materials at sub-micron or nanometer scale required in the high-tech applications on the other hand represent a rather challenging task that cannot be accomplished without the use of innovative deposition strategies. From this point of view, deposition procedures that combine non-equilibrium plasma with other deposition techniques and employ liquids, aerosols, biomolecules or unconventional precursors that are used for plasma polymerization appear to be highly promising.

This Special Issue is to provide a comprehensive overview of advanced plasma-based approaches that are suitable for the production of functional thin films and nanomaterials. Hence, the proposed topics include but are not limited to, the following:

  • Plasma-based gas-phase synthesis of nanomaterials;
  • Plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition;
  • Plasma‐assisted vacuum evaporation;
  • Plasma-assisted vacuum thermal decomposition;
  • Plasma electrospinning;
  • Liquid- or aerosol-assisted plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition;
  • Synthesis nanomaterials by plasma in liquids;
  • Plasma and 3D printing.

Dr. Andrei Choukourov
Dr. Ondřej Kylián
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • plasma polymers
  • gas aggregation cluster sources
  • plasma-assisted deposition
  • plasma in/with liquids
  • plasma treatment
  • functional materials

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2225 KiB  
Article
Structure of Plasma (re)Polymerized Polylactic Acid Films Fabricated by Plasma-Assisted Vapour Thermal Deposition
by Zdeněk Krtouš, Lenka Hanyková, Ivan Krakovský, Daniil Nikitin, Pavel Pleskunov, Ondřej Kylián, Jana Sedlaříková and Jaroslav Kousal
Materials 2021, 14(2), 459; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14020459 - 19 Jan 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2485
Abstract
Plasma polymer films typically consist of very short fragments of the precursor molecules. That rather limits the applicability of most plasma polymerisation/plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) processes in cases where retention of longer molecular structures is desirable. Plasma-assisted vapour thermal deposition (PAVTD) circumvents [...] Read more.
Plasma polymer films typically consist of very short fragments of the precursor molecules. That rather limits the applicability of most plasma polymerisation/plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) processes in cases where retention of longer molecular structures is desirable. Plasma-assisted vapour thermal deposition (PAVTD) circumvents this limitation by using a classical bulk polymer as a high molecular weight “precursor”. As a model polymer in this study, polylactic acid (PLA) has been used. The resulting PLA-like films were characterised mostly by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The molecular structure of the films was found to be tunable in a broad range: from the structures very similar to bulk PLA polymer to structures that are more typical for films prepared using PECVD. In all cases, PLA-like groups are at least partially preserved. A simplified model of the PAVTD process chemistry was proposed and found to describe well the observed composition of the films. The structure of the PLA-like films demonstrates the ability of plasma-assisted vapour thermal deposition to bridge the typical gap between the classical and plasma polymers. Full article
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12 pages, 3374 KiB  
Article
Tuning Stoichiometry and Structure of Pd-WO3−x Thin Films for Hydrogen Gas Sensing by High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering
by Nirmal Kumar, Stanislav Haviar, Jiří Rezek, Pavel Baroch and Petr Zeman
Materials 2020, 13(22), 5101; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13225101 - 12 Nov 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1919
Abstract
By tuning the deposition parameters of reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering, specifically the pulse length, we were able to prepare WO3−x films with various stoichiometry and structure. Subsequently, the films were annealed in air at moderate temperature (350 °C). We demonstrate [...] Read more.
By tuning the deposition parameters of reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering, specifically the pulse length, we were able to prepare WO3−x films with various stoichiometry and structure. Subsequently, the films were annealed in air at moderate temperature (350 °C). We demonstrate that the stoichiometry of the as-deposited films influences considerably the type of crystalline phase formed in the annealed films. The appropriate sub-stoichiometry of the films (approx. WO2.76) enabled crystallization of the monoclinic phase during the annealing. This phase is favorable for hydrogen sensing applications. To characterize the sensory behavior of the films, the tungsten oxide films were decorated by Pd nanoparticles before annealing and were assembled as a conductometric gas sensor. The sensory response of the films that crystallized in the monoclinic structure was proven to be superior to that of the films containing other phases. Full article
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15 pages, 3762 KiB  
Article
Dual-Mode Solution Plasma Processing for the Production of Chitosan/Ag Composites with the Antibacterial Effect
by Valerii Titov, Daniil Nikitin, Irina Naumova, Nikolay Losev, Irina Lipatova, Dmitry Kosterin, Pavel Pleskunov, Roman Perekrestov, Nikolay Sirotkin, Anna Khlyustova, Alexander Agafonov and Andrei Choukourov
Materials 2020, 13(21), 4821; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13214821 - 28 Oct 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3041
Abstract
The development of novel biocompatible and biodegradable materials for medical applications has been drawing significant interest in the scientific community for years. Particularly, chitosan loaded with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) has a strong antimicrobial potential and could be applied, for example, as wound [...] Read more.
The development of novel biocompatible and biodegradable materials for medical applications has been drawing significant interest in the scientific community for years. Particularly, chitosan loaded with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) has a strong antimicrobial potential and could be applied, for example, as wound dressing material. In this work, chitosan/Ag NP composites were produced utilizing a single-step plasma-solution process, which is simple and environmentally friendly. An acetic solution of chitosan containing AgNO3 was treated by the direct current (DC) atmospheric pressure glow discharge, with the liquid serving as either cathode or anode. The plasma-solution system with liquid anode is more useful for the production of Ag NPs. Nevertheless, the NP size is comparable for both cases. The plasma treatment with both polarities led to chitosan degradation. The cleavage of glucosidic chains mostly occurred in the system with the liquid cathode, whereas the side oxidation reactions took place when the solution served as the anode. The oxidation processes were possibly induced by the hydrogen peroxide H2O2 efficiently formed in the last case. The composite materials produced with both polarities of liquid electrode demonstrated the bactericidal action against Gram-negative Escherichia coli, Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, and Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis. Full article
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