THE INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE DEPOSITION TECHNIQUE FOR REFLECTION INCREASING LAYER SYSTEMS

Energy economizing is a more and more essential demand of industries i n America and Europe. Thus the illumination industries are looking for possibilities of enhancing the lighting efficiency especially by incr easing the reflectance of the basic reflection materials. The ecologic ally beneficial PVD-techniques are the preferential means of solving t his task. Reflection increasing multilayer systems have been well-know n for several decades. But in the most application cases the plants us ing PVD-techniques have not been productive enough for mass production . Due to the necessity of an own optimized PVD-process for each single layer, the productivity of a multilayer depositing plant depends on t he capability of combinations of several PVD-techniques in a continuou s working line. Von Ardenne Anlagentechnik developed a highly producti ve deposition line based on the air-to-air principle allowing continuo us production and on the successive combination of two deposition tech niques: high rate sputtering and electron beam reactive evaporation. L ast year, in Germany, the first plant of this type went into productio n. Metal strips of up to 1250 mm width passing the line attain a refle ctance of 96% The layer parameters are measured by in situ ellipsometr y at the surface of the moved strip. The highly productive solution of the task set by the illumination industries opens up new possibilitie s for solving similar multilayer deposition tasks as well. (C) 1997 El sevier Science S.A.