WIDE WEB COATING OF COMPLEX MATERIALS

For over 25 years, the thermal evaporation of aluminium onto thin poly meric webs, such as polyester (PET) and polypropylene (PP), has genera ted large volumes of barrier packaging films, decorative films, capaci tor films and some window films. During the 1980s, the experience of w ide web handling was combined with deposition technologies, such as el ectron-beam evaporation, magnetron sputtering and plasma-enhanced chem ical vapour deposition (PECVD), to create a large number of new, excit ing, coating materials, including oxides and nitrides of most elements . More particularly, combinations of these coating layers into a compl ex coating stack Led to new products, such as low emissivity, solar he at reflecting, architectural glazing films, electrochromic devices and high performance optical reflectors. With these technologies, unique coating characteristics can be realized, e.g. transparent electrodes, transparent, flexible glassy barriers for moisture and gases and amorp hous soft magnetics for security devices. Having their beginnings in e xclusive markets, these new, exciting products are now finding their w ay into larger consumer markets.