Fred,

Depending on the epoxy - I have seen improved adhesion by using either a
H2, N2, O2 or Ar plasma  -
Most chemical dip solutions are specific to the type of polymer or epoxy
and most of the time I have either found stuff in literature or made up
my own recipe -
I seen tricks like biasing the substrate when sputtering your metal to
get the atoms below the surface of the epoxy.
I'm not sure if vapor prime HMDS would help in this situation.

As far as a metal combination that would work better it would depend on
what your trying to do - but a good rule of thumb is Cr and Ti make
pretty good adhesion layers.

Thanks,

Greg Miller
KVH Industries
Email: gmiller@kvh.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Hussain [mailto:fh1@techprt.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 3:31 AM
To: mems-talk@memsnet.org
Subject: [mems-talk] Adhesion of metal to epoxy substrates


Dear Collegues,

I am looking for any advice/information on how to improve adhesion of
evaporated metal (nichrome + gold) onto thermo-epoxy based substrates.
In
particular, information on chemical and physical (plasma) surface
pre-treatments and/or alternative metals which may have a distinct
advantage
over nichrome and gold, would be highly appreciated.

Thanking you in advance,

Fred.
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