The Barrier Properties of PET Coated DLC Film Deposited by Microwave Surface-Wave PECVD

In this paper we report the investigation of diamond-like carbon (DLC) deposited by microwave surface-wave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) web for the purpose of the barrier property improvement. In order to characterize the properties of DLC coatings, we used several substrates, silicon wafer, glass, and PET web and KBr tablet. The deposition rate was obtained by surface profiler based on the DLC deposited on glass substrates; Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (FTIR) was carried out on KBr tablets to investigate chemical composition and bonding structure; the morphology of the DLC coating was analyzed by atomic force microscope (AFM) on Si substrates. For the barrier properties of PET webs, we measured the oxygen transmission rate (OTR) and water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) after coated with DLC films. We addressed the film barrier property related to process parameters, such as microwave power and pulse parameter in this work. The results show that the DLC coatings can greatly improve the barrier properties of PET webs.