A plasma is produced in a treatment space by diffusing a plasma gas at atmospheric pressure and subjecting it to an electric field created by two metallic electrodes separated by a dielectric material, a vapor precursor is mixed with the plasma, and a substrate material is coated by vapor deposition of the vaporized substance at atmospheric pressure in the plasma field. The use of vaporized silicon-based materials, fluorine-based materials, chlorine-based materials, and organo-metallic complex materials enables the manufacture of coated substrates with improved properties with regard to moisture-barrier, oxygen-barrier, hardness, scratch- and abrasion-resistance, chemical-resistance, low-friction, hydrophobic and/or oleophobic, hydrophilic, biocide and/or antibacterial, and electrostatic-dissipative/conductive characteristics.