Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films are modified by cyclonic atmospheric pressure plasma. The experimentally measured gas phase temperature was around 30 degrees C to 90 degrees C, indicating that this cyclonic atmospheric pressure plasma can treat polymers without unfavorable thermal effects. The surface properties of cyclonic atmospheric pressure plasma-treated PET films were examined by the static contact angle measurements. The influences of plasma conditions such as treatment time, plasma power, nozzle distance, and gas flow rate on the PET surface properties were studied. It was found that such cyclonic atmospheric pressure plasma is very effective in PET surface modification, the reduced water contact angle was observed from 74 degrees to less than 37 degrees with only 10 s plasma treatment. The chemical composition of the PET films was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study the changes in PET surface feature of the polymer surfaces due to plasma treatment The photoemission plasma species in the continuous cyclone atmospheric pressure plasma was identified by optical emission spectroscopy (OES). From OES analysis, the plasma modification efficiency can be attributed to the interaction of oxygen-based plasma species in the plasma with PET surface. In this study, it shows a novel way for large scale polymeric surface modification by continuous cyclone atmospheric pressure plasma processing. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.