Abstract
Polymer thin films were prepared by radio frequency (RF) plasma polymerization of phthalic anhydride (PA). First, monomer vaporization temperature ($100{\sim}160^{\circ}C$) was optimized by evaluating the thermal properties of thin films using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and measuring the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness with atomic force microscope (AFM) at the fixed plasma power of 10 W and time of 5 min in a continuous-wave (CW) mode. Plasma power (5~20 W) was then optimized by measuring the film solubility in solvents such as toluene, acetone, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and 1 methylpyrrolidine (NMP). Next, pulsed mode plasma polymerization was also studied by varying the duty cycle of on-time (5, 20%) under optimized conditions of continuous-wave (CW) mode ($120^{\circ}C$, 10 W) in order to increase the anhydride functional groups. Finally, polymer thin films were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and ${\alpha}$-step.