Guest post provided by Denton Vacuum, LLC.Denton Vacuum manufactures machines that employ precision sputter deposition methods for diamond-like film quality. Visit www.dentonvacuum.com for more information.
Summary: Vacuum deposition systems are high quality instruments that use sputtering methods to lay ultra-thin metallic and dielectric coatings to various surfaces. The applications for these processes are numerous in health, optics and telecommunications.
Vacuum deposition systems are top quality, precision machines used in a variety of circumstances to produce ultra-thin metallic and dielectric coatings that wouldn’t be possible with any other method. In many cases, these films are only a few atoms thick, and require the deposition processes that occur within a vacuum. These vacuums have state-of-the-art controls and automation.
This kind of precision drives the best-in-class hardware/subsystems that customers value the most. A specific, high-yield process solution on a robust, high-uptime system platform is necessary for whatever industry that might be utilizing these machines. Systems currently operate all over the world in laboratories and institutions in North America, South America, Europe, and virtually all of the Pacific Rim countries. Examples of industries that utilize sputter deposition machines are industrial companies such as General Electric, Varian, Intel, Motorola, Pentax, IBM, AT&T, Texas Instruments, 3M, Kodak, Zeiss, Xerox, Northrop-Grumman, JDS Uniphase, TRW, and prominent research facilities and educational establishments all over the world. That gives some heavy credibility to the quality these machines can produce.
One type of sputtering method is called E-beam evaporation. E-beam evaporation tends to leave a higher density of the film deposited with increased adhesive properties. Substances that endure an unusually large amount of heat or pressure will require a more suitable kind of protection on their surfaces. Ion-beam deposition doesn’t heat the whole chamber, but only targets the source material, creating less contamination. These vacuums can stand a lot more use, because a higher variety of materials can be used within the machine.
Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is a particular sputtering method that achieves its goals via a chemical process. The results are stunning, laying a film that is anywhere between a few nanometers to 100 micrometers on its target. The quality of the covering is so dense; it can be compared to the consistency of a diamond.
The way a PECVD machine works is that it begins by heating the coating material into a gas. In fact, this gas doesn’t stay a gas for very long. It’s heated at such a high temperature, that it becomes plasma, the same state of matter that exists within our sun. The atoms in the material become ionized and charged. A radio frequency alternating current or direct current discharge between two electrodes can be observed if the process is closely examined. This kind of power allows the material to cool in the form of condensation on the surface of the target. These coatings are used in industrial and research applications ranging from optics, semiconductors, electro-optics, display, tribology, medical devices, to telecommunications.