The Application of Plasma Etching Techniques for the Printing and Packaging Industry

Plasma etching is a technique for removing material particularly organic compounds, from a sample. A steam of gas such as oxygen is made highly reactive by the application of radio frequency energy and this is used to remove organic material in a controlled manner. Special equipment is required to achieve this objective and the sample thus prepared is coated with a conductive layer and examined with a scanning electron microscope. This is relatively a new technique and it is possible that quantitative measurement of ink trapping could be made. A considerable amount of time was spent investigating this technique and some of the photographic results will be shown at the conference. Samples taken from solid yellow and solid cyan were etched, enlarged from 280X to 14000X and photographed. The analysis and results of those photographed will be reported visually at the conference. Finally, there is good evidence that the extension of the technique could yield useful quantitative information on the distribution of ink over a paper surface. Finally, there is good evidence that the extension of the technique could yield useful quantitative information on the distribution of ink over a paper surface.