Departamento de Física, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Apdo. México.

Guillermo J. Cruz, Ma. Guadalupe Olayo, Regulo Lopez, Everardo Granda, Munoz Arturo, Valencia Raul

Materials prepared with polymers and metals have been studied for long time in order to enhance their properties. This work presents a study on the addition of layers composed by different metals on thin films of Polyethylene (PE). The process combines Stainless Steel, Titanium and Aluminum, to form agglomerates that can be deposited on the surface of PE. This process requires a great interchange of energy; however, many experimental conditions were studied in order to preserve the structural integrity of the polymers.

PE films with thickness of 1 mm were used in a vacuum reactor were the metallic layers were implanted by plasma at 4 Pa, 400-600 V dc, 0.5-3 A, and temperatures between 300ºC and 600ºC. The results indicate that the polymers reacted in a first step with the carrier gases, Oxygen and Nitrogen, that eroded the surface. After that, the metallic particles were adhered forming thin layers with a growing rate in the 1-2 nm/min interval. The metallic layers changed the hardness of PE, which increased more than 20 times.