HIGH-RATE DEPOSITION BY VACUUM-ARC METHODS

Large area coating is a very complex problem with many aspects such as deposition rate, investment costs, technological reliability, safety demands and film properties. Vapor activation has been proved to be ve ry effective for improving the quality. Activation allows higher densi fication, the formation of fine grained or even amorphous structures a nd lowering the deposition temperature. Vacuum are evaporation is char acterized for the highest degree of ionization between the industriall y deposition sources just in use. A short revue of arc based activated deposition technologies will be given in the paper. Advantages and pr oblems of arc evaporation are discussed in comparison to other PVD met hods applicable for large area coating. Besides the industrially intro duced dc arc evaporation new high rate are techniques and combinations with other PVD sources are described. It is shown that for large area coating besides the deposition rate itself the activation necessary f or sufficient film quality must be considered. The activation must be adapted to the conditions of high rate. Are process proved to be espec ially suitable to meet these demands. Pulsed are techniques have a lar ge potential as sources for high ion current applicable for ion assist ed high rate deposition and for direct highly activated deposition as well. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.