POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF HYPERTHERMAL ATOMIC OXYGEN FOR TREATMENT OFMATERIALS AND STRUCTURES

Many polymer-based materials degrade in low earth orbit (LEG), mainly due to the damaging environmental effects of hyperthermal or fast atom ic oxygen of energy E similar to 5 eV and solar vacuum ultraviolet rad iation. Fast atomic oxygen fluxes of similar energies are generated no w in ground-based facilities that are used for accelerated testing of materials. This paper presents a brief overview of the effects of inte raction of fast atomic oxygen fluxes with polymer-based materials in t he LEO space environment and in ground-based simulators, and discusses a few possible applications of fast atomic oxygen fluxes. Such applic ations can lead to considerable advantages over plasma treatment, aime d at improvement of adhesion-related and optical properties of polymer -based materials, high-quality precise photoresist etching and passiva tive oxidation of advanced semiconductor materials, and modified or en tirely new surface properties of biomaterials and chemical sensors.