What is the impact of plasma treatment on wire surface? Can surface damage occur during aggressive plasma treatment?
A2: Plasma treatment can be described as ion bombardment on wire surface. Dirty deposits and oxides layers break under the mechanical impact of ion bombardment (micro sputtering) in the plasma chamber. Carbohydrate substances burn at high temperature turning into ashes. Plasma process can also lead in a chemical reaction on the wire surface, providing that the right choice of processing gas and process parameters is achieved. This can lead to surface deoxidation / decontamination, which can be used as an alternative to acid pickling or electrochemical polishing. Unlike pickling and electrochemical polishing plasma treatment does NOT lead to surface erosion or loss of base material. Plasma treatment can also be set to perform micro surface polishing. Macroscopic irregularities on the wire surface such as tips, apexes would be exposed to more intensive ion bombardment than flat surface, causing them to melt off. This will result in decreased macro-roughness and increased micro-roughness
