In this paper, the successful deposition of acrylic acid polymer (PAA) nano-cones on the inner surface of a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tube using an atmospheric pressure pulsed plasma jet (APPJ) with acrylic acid (AA) monomer is presented. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) measurements indicated that various reactive radicals, such as center dot OH and center dot O, existed in the plasma jet. Moreover, the pulsed current proportionally increased with the increase in the applied voltage. The strengthened stretching vibration of the carbonyl group (C=O) at 1700 cm (1), shown in the ATR-FTIR spectra, clearly indicated that the PAA was deposited on the PVC surface. The maximum height of the PAA nano-cones deposited by this method ranged from 150 to 200 nm. FTIR and XPS results confirmed the enhanced exposure of the carboxyl groups on the modified PVC surface, which was considered highly beneficial for successfully immobilizing a high density of biomolecules. The XPS data showed that the carbon ratios of the C-OH/R and COOH/R groups increased from 7.03% and 2.6% to 18.69% and 6.81%, respectively (more than doubled) when an Ar/O-2 plasma with AA monomer was applied to treat the inner surface of the PVC tube. Moreover, the enhanced attachment density of MC3T3-E1 bone cells was observed on the PVC inner surface coated with PAA nano-cones. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.