Formation and characterization of hydrophobic glass surface treated by atmospheric pressure He/CH₄plasma

Atmospheric pressure helium plasmas, generated in the open air by 13.56 MHz rf power, were applied for the glass surface wettability modification. The plasma gas temperature, measured by the spectroscopic method, was under 400 K which is low enough to treat the samples without thermal damages. The hydrophobicity of the samples determined by the water droplet contact angle method was dependent on the methane gas content and the plasma exposure time. Adding the methane gas by a small amount of 0.25%, the contact angle was remarkably increased from 10° to 83° after the 10 s plasma treatment. From the analysis of the treated surface and the plasma, it was shown that the deposition of alkane functional groups such as C-H stretch, CH₂bend, and CH₃bend was one of the contributing factors for the hydrophobicity development. In addition, the hydrophobic properties lasted over 2 months even after the single treatment. From the results, the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment promises the fast and low-cost method for the thermally-weak surface modification.