Universal Correlation of Nitrogen 1s and Oxygen 1s Photoelectron Binding Energies with Chemical Composition in Nitrogen-Containing Plasma Polymers
The incorporation of oxygen into nitrogen-containing plasma deposited polymers was studied by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). As the oxygen content of the plasma polymer increased, the binding energy of the N 1s photoelectrons increased. Conversely, the binding energy of the O 1s photoelectrons was inversely proportional to the nitrogen content of the plasma polymer. The data from a large number of samples all obeyed the same “universal” correlations of photoelectron binding energy versus chemical composition. The data were described by the same curve regardless of whether the oxygen was incorporated rapidly into the thin film during plasma deposition or whether the oxygen was added slowly during spontaneous oxidation of the film in air. This implies that the same thermodynamic principles of radical reactions governed the addition of oxygen to the plasma polymer. The shift in the O 1s and N 1s photoelectron binding energies as a function of chemical composition was used to monitor the proximity of nitrogen and oxygen. By contrasting the experimental data with a simple binomial model which described the random addition of oxygen to a lattice containing carbon and nitrogen, we were able to show that oxygen was preferentially added near nitrogen-containing groups in plasma polymers.