Patent ID: 7959987

Claim:
A method for treating a surface of a substrate useful in a fuel cell, comprising: placing the substrate in a process chamber, the surface of the substrate having a first fluid contact angle and comprising a carbon composite material; generating a plasma inside the process chamber; and depositing a material layer onto a portion of the surface of the substrate from a mixture of precursors for the material layer to reduce the first fluid contact angle, wherein the material layer comprises a material selected from the group consisting of silicon nitride, amorphous silicon, phosphorus doped amorphous silicon, microcrystal silicon, and combinations thereof, a surface of the material layer has a second fluid contact angle smaller than the first fluid contact angle, and the material layer has a wet etch rate of less than about 0.03 Å/min in the presence of about 10 ppm of hydrofluoric acid in water.