A Method for Bonding PDMS Without Using Plasma

The vapor-assisted treatment constitutes a simple and inexpensive method to increase the adhesion strength of polydimethylsiloxane and glass without using plasma. In this method, the targeted PDMS-glass sample is exposed to a vapor in an enclosed container for a certain time. Different chemicals were tested as possible vapor sources. No increase in the adhesion strength of PDMS-glass samples was observed when silanes without chloro functional groups were used. On the other hand, all alkyl trichlorosilanes tested in this study led to permanent bondings. In addition, an increase in the strength of the PDMS-glass adhesion was obtained with di- and monochlorosilanes as well as with hydrochloric acid solution. These results experimentally demonstrate that the hydrogen chlorine gas assists with the PDMS-glass bonding, making the vapor-assisted treatment a method with multiple applications in both small scale laboratory research and large scale manufacturing processes.