Weak interfacial bonding between carbon-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic polymer (CFRTP) and thermoset adhesive is the Achilles' heel for adhesive jointing of CFRTP with other materials. In this invention, we propose a surface modification method that involves plasma treating both adhesive and substrate surfaces to enhance the fracture resistance of dissimilar metal-CFRTP materials bonded with adhesive. We used a high-power plasma treater with compressed air gas to treat the substrate surfaces, and a lower-power plasma treater with a mixture of oxygen and argon gases to treat the adhesives. To test the effectiveness of our proposed method, we performed single lap shear tests on metal-CFRTP joints with optimized treatment parameters for both adhesive and substrates. Our results demonstrate that lap shear strength (LSS) of the joints can be improved by more than 250% compared to as-received counterparts, and more than 50% compared to the case of only treating substrate surfaces. This invention has the potential to make significant contributions to the field of adhesive joining by enhancing the damage tolerance of CFRTP joints with other materials.