Influence of cold plasma treatment on the PS/TiO₂ film's optical properties of nanocomposite surfaces

Organic plastics have been used due to their impressive chemical and mechanical properties, though, there is still room for improvement to achieve higher dielectric permittivity. In the present work, the blank polystyrene (PS) was doped with nanoparticles of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) at different ratios (1 %, 2 %, and 3 %) employing the casting method. The blank PS and nanocomposite films of PS/TiO₂ have been exposed to the cold DBD plasma system. Subsequently, calculations including the absorption coefficient, refractive index, extinction factor, energy gap, and dielectric constant (real and imaginary) were conducted. Results show that the absorption coefficient and refractive index were increased, and the extinction factor was decreased due to the high absorption. Real dielectric constant increased after the doping process, while the imaginary dielectric constant had minimal values in loss of absorption indicating small losses in absorption. The XRD examination shows semi-crystalline and crystalline structures. Applying this method might have a broad application in various devices used in cutting-edge electronics.