Surface roughness effect, adsorption

In order to prevent the irrevisible adhesion of MEMS microstructures, several studies have been performed to alter the surface of MEMS, either chemically or physically. Chemical alterations have focused on the use of organosilane self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), which prevent the adsorption of ambient moisture and also reduce the inherent attractive forces between the microstructures. Although SAMs are very effective at reducing irreversible adhesion in MEMs, drawbacks include irreproducibility, excess solvent use, and thermal stability. More recent efforts have shifted towards physical alterations in order to increase the surface roughness of MEMS devices. 

Application of this, or the equivalent statistical models, to actual polymer adsorption processes is further complicated by very imprecise knowledge of the solid surface area which is actually available for polymer adsorption. Surface roughness etc. can certainly be expected to have much more complex effects than on the adsorption of small molecules due to restrictions on... 

C) The effect ofphysical parameters on tribofilm chemistry. The effect of physical parameters (adsorption, rubbing, temperature, concentration, load, surface roughness, tribofilm thickness) and on the chemistry of tribofilms was studied by many investigators, see Table 4.3. 

Physical parameters By using Table 4.3. The effect of physical parameters such as adsorption, rubbing, temperature, concentration, load, surface roughness on antiwear performance of ZDDPs , which term is described by the physical parameter (a) the tribofilm accumulated on the surface becomes thicker with adsorption time (b) long-chain phosphates are formed on the topmost surface, but short-chain phosphates were present in the bulk (c) sulfur and phosphorus ratio changes with rubbing time and (d) when load increased the concentration of (S) and decreased that of (P) ... 

Test samples were characterized by x-ray and electron diffraction and by electron microscopy to indicate the effectiveness of the preparation from the viewpoint of creating a planar undistorted surface. The roughness factor of the surface indicated by adsorption studies were in good agreement with the expectation that the surfaces actually did possess planarity on a submicroscopic scale. 

Atomic force microscopy has been up to now only scarcely used by the plasma processing community. Results mainly concern low-resolution measurements, that is modification of the surface roughness induced by the plasma [43,44], Micro masking effects have been observed when processing Si with a SF6 plasma beam at low temperature (Fig. 11) and correlated to the multi-layer adsorption of plasma species as observed by XPS [45], Further development of vacuum techniques should allow high resolution surface probe microscopy measurements on plasma-treated samples, and possibly lead to complementary information on adsorption kinetics, surface density of states. 

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