RECENT PROGRESS IN FILTERED VACUUM-ARC DEPOSITION

During this decade significant advances have been made both in the und erstanding and implementation of filtered vacuum are deposition. Rigid rotor models have been analyzed statistically, and new models which t reat the mutual influence of the electrons and ions on each other self -consistently, take into account the centrifugal force on the ions, an d take into consideration collisions, have been formulated. It was sho wn that the plasma transport efficiency is limited by drifts caused by the centrifugal force and by the electric field generated by charge s eparation in the plasma. For a range of magnetic fields strengths for which the ions are not magnetized, i.e., confined to a Larmor radius l ess than the duct radius, the transport efficiency for Cu plasma is ab out 10%, and depends only weakly on the magnetic field strength. Incre ased transmission is found when the ions are magnetized, reaching abou t 50% for a 36-60 mT field in typical configurations. The plasma trans port efficiency and spatial distribution has been measured over a larg e parameter range, and correlated with the various theories. The plasm a beam may be approximated as a Gaussian distribution which is displac ed in the B x G direction, where G is in the direction of the centrifu gal force, while a displacement in the plane of symmetry is surprising ly found in the -G direction. The total convected ion current decrease s exponentially with distance from the toroidal filter entrance. Macro particle transport within the magnetic filter has been analyzed, and i t has been shown that electrostatic reflection from the walls can occu r if the magnetic held is weak. Filtered are sources with improved thr oughput performance and novel geometries have been built, and are now available commercially. The range of coatings deposited with FVAD has been expanded to include metals, oxides, and nitrides, as well as diam ond-like carbon. In several cases, coatings having the highest quality reported in the literature have been fabricated with the FVAD techniq ue, and one commercial application has been reported.