Abstract
To conquer the challenges of charge accumulation and surface flashover in epoxy resin under direct current (DC) electric fields, numerous efforts have been made to research dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma treatments using CF(4)/Ar as the medium gas, which has proven effective in improving surface flashover voltage. However, despite being an efficient plasma etching medium, SF(6)/Ar has remained largely unexplored. In this work, we constructed a DBD plasma device with an SF(6)/Ar gas medium and explored the influence of processing times and gas flow rates on the morphology and surface flashover voltage of epoxy resin. The surface morphology observed by SEM indicates that the degree of plasma etching intensifies with processing time and gas flow rate, and the quantitative characterization of AFM indicates a maximum roughness of 144 nm after 3 min of treatment. Flashover test results show that at 2 min of processing time, the surface flashover voltage reached a maximum of 19.02 kV/mm, which is 25.49% higher than that of the untreated sample and previously reported works. In addition to the effect of surface roughness, charge trap distribution shows that fluorinated groups help to deepen the trap energy levels and density. The optimal modification was achieved at a gas flow rate of 3.5 slm coupled with 2 min of processing time. Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that fluorination introduces additional electron traps (0.29 eV) and hole traps (0.38 eV), enhancing the capture of charge carriers and suppressing surface flashover.