ICMCTF2001 Session G2-1: Scale-up, Manufacturing Aspects and Industrial Applications

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 8:30 AM in Room Town & Country

Tuesday Morning

Start	Invited?	Item
8:30 AM	Invited	G2-1-1 Modern CVD Equipment - Fit for a New Generation of Coatings E. Mohn (IonBond AG, Switzerland) For many years the performance of cutting and forming tools has been decisively enhanced by multilayer CVD coatings consisting essentially of TiC, TiN, Ti(C,N), and Al2O3. Despite the limitations associated with these standard workhorse coatings, tool performance has steadily improved through a better match between substrate and coating properties, improved control of individual coating layer characteristics, and more sophisticated tailoring of the multilayer structure including subtle interface adhesion and cohesion optimization. An important factor in all these coating improvements was the availability of reliable high-productivity coating equipment that utilizes a fully automatic operator-independent control system. As opposed to 20 years ago, it is now quite common to purchase equipment that repeatably produces Al2O3 of an alpha and/or kappa structure, and Ti(C,N) through both a high and middle temperature reaction design. Recent results have been published and new products have been introduced that make use of new coating materials such as Zr(C,N), HfN, and ZrO2:Al2O3. Common to these new CVD coatings is the use of refractory metals with higher melting points as compared to Al. Since decades these coatings have been produced on laboratory scale reactors, yet the transfer to industrial production has been limited by the lack of suitable high temperature equipment. The development of adequate hardware to transfer these metals in the vapor phase to the deposition reactor resulting in coatings of the desired characteristics has added to the complexity of CVD equipment, yet is now possible in a high production environment. The evolution of commercial CVD equipment shows a steady and evident graded increase in the outside diameter of the retort from 200, 250, 325, 430, 530, to the recent 750 mm. Some economic aspects of this evolution are presented and discussed. Although the largest mentioned size is not (yet?) applied in the carbide insert industry, where demands on coating uniformity and properties throughout the entire working reactor volume are probably the toughest of all CVD applications, each previously mentioned step required solutions to the problems of scaling up the existing processes to the new reactor dimensions. Some important aspects and solutions to the up-scaling issues are presented from the point of view of both the equipment manufacturer and user.
9:10 AM		G2-1-3 Industrial Trends and Aspects in Arc Coating Technology and Arc Equipment H. Curtins (swiss-plas.com ag, Switzerland) Arc technology has emerged as a key technology over the last few years in the pursuit of more economic hard coating solutions. Major improvements could be presented with respect to quality, reproducibility and productivity. Coating system conception and design could be improved to fit perfectly into standard industrial production lines and environments without the need of specialized employees to operate such systems. Unlike in similar other technologies relatively minor problems were encountered in the scaling-up of this technology. Presently we can however observe a growing interest to implement hard coating systems in smaller production lines with coating volumes by far smaller than compared to classical job-shop facilities. Small and medium size tool and component manufacturing companies have discovered the advantage to integrate hard coating manufacturing within their own production line in order to improve quality, delivery time and added value. This trend creates the need of highly versatile scaled-down, good value coating equipment with no compromise with respect to coating quality, reproducibility and operating cost. Extremely low door-to-door cycle times, precision and structured (multilayer, gradient, variation of composition, etc.) hard coatings, control and variation of coating characteristics (hardness, microstructure, droplet size and density) add up to the list of customer requirements. The author will discuss different technological and economic aspects in achieving this goal on the base of realized concepts. Practical application examples illustrating the feasibility of this high-ranking project are shown.
9:30 AM		G2-1-4 INO - An Internet Information System for Innovative Coatings and Thin Films K.I. Schiffmann, M. Petrik (Fraunhofer Institut für Schicht- und Oberflächentechnik, Germany); H.J. Fetzer, A. Gemmler, S. Schwarz (Fraunhofer Institut für Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung, Germany); M. Griepentrog, G. Reiners (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und - prüfung, Germany) In the last years a lot of research has been performed in the field of surface coatings, often supported by governmental research programs, as i.e. in Germany the OSTec- and MaTech research programs. But, up to now there is still a lack in transfer of this large amount of knowledge from research to industrial application and to commercialization. To overcome this problem a new database system has been developed which in a first step, will make available the whole content of the OSTec research program (approx. 250 research reports) of the last 10 years. In further steps data from products of coating companies and other research Programs will be taken into account. The database contain following sections : 1. Definition of the coating system: coating names, sub-layer structure, substrates, chemical composition, crystallographic structure, surface morphology 2. Deposition plants: supplier of equipment, description of plants, target materials, process gases, process diagnostics, production relevant data 3. Deposition processes: classification of process, detailed description of process steps including deposition parameters, quality of deposition (homogeneity, reproducibility, deposition rate, duration), production relevant data (substrates, deposition temperature, etc.), sample pre- and post treatment 4. Application: material properties, functions of coatings, fields of application, practical experience 5. Testing procedures an equipment: How to test material properties of coatings, testing machines, rules and standards for testing 6. Base information: deposition processes, suppliers, links, etc. The whole information will be available via internet and it will be possible to search for coatings by their material properties, functions of coatings, possible substrates, etc.. Also search for combination of properties e.g. for wear-resistant, conductive, decorative coatings, etc. will be possible.
9:50 AM		G2-1-5 Developments in Coatings, Equipment and Applications for Flexible Coating E Bloesch (Platit, Switzerland); J Cip (Platit, Czech Replublic); T. Cselle, W. Friedel (Platit, Switzerland); Ch. Galamand (Platit, USA); P. Lavalle (Platit, Italy); Y. Ziegler, H. Zimmermann (Platit, Switzerland); P. Bartos (Swiss-Tek, USA) The coating market has grown continuously in the last several years due to the large and medium size coating centers. Large and medium size coating users are served well by these centers with the standard coatings (TiN, TiCN and TiAlN) delivered within a few days. However, the logistical efforts are very high on both sides. Is there a chance for growth in the coating industry through new customers of these centers and different (more) substrates to be coated? Only if we are prepared to go in a new direction instead of the conventional coating services: Coatings must become attractive for small and medium size users as well. They should have the possibility to use special coatings for special applications. - These special coatings should be available without longer service times and price premiums, even for small batches. - These dedicated coatings shouldn't be simple modifications of well-known standard coatings. The small and medium size users need state-of-the-art quality and must offer the latest results in coating development. These goals can be achieved with the help of - faster service of flexible coating centers, or - Through integration of the coating process into the machining production. In both cases we need flexible large, medium size and even small coating units, which can carry out different coating processes quickly, with high variability and reliability. In the field of coatings for cutting tools, the following development trends are the most important: - Super hard nanolayers and nanocomposites to achieve the performance of diamond tools with coated tungsten carbide. This is especially important for hard machining, for cutting and forming aluminum. - Coatings without arc macro particles or with reduced droplets to avoid chip jam. - Combinations of hard and soft coatings that have good lubricity and gliding features as well as high wear resistance. To go in this new direction, the development of coatings, applications, and equipment must be very well coordinated. This paper introduces the newest results of these developments at Platit, Switzerland.
10:30 AM	Invited	G2-1-7 Materials-Based Design for Real-World Applications P.J. Rudnik (Gold Star Coatings, Inc.); K.-D. Bouzakis (Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki, Greece); G. Erkens (CemeCon GmbH, Germany) The difficulties of introducing new coating systems into real-world applications on a production scale are becoming increasingly complex. The number of options are greater, the turn-around time shorter, and they are often more niche-oriented. In addition, most in-house testing does not simulate the applications. The concerted use of a process which combines analysis (impact testing, nano-indentation, SEM), proper cutting experiments, and FEM, can quantify the fatigue behavior of the system and correlate it to customer applications. This process will be demonstrated in conjunction with the on-going development of cemented carbide bevel gear cutters, or "stick blades'.
11:10 AM		G2-1-9 Producing Graphit-iC^TM Coatings in Large Scale Production Systems Using The UDP 850/6 Unbalanced Magnetron Sputtering System A.H.S. Jones, D.G. Teer, S. Yang (Company Teer Coatings Ltd., United Kingdom) Graphit-iC^TM is a wear resistant, solid lubricant carbon based coating. It has excellent tribological properties and is consequently being demanded in large scale production for many applications such as cutting and forming tools, bearings, gears and various rubbing components. Graphit-iC is deposited by non-reactive sputtering of graphite targets. It was developed in a UDP650 four magnetron research and development system which limited the number of components that could be coated in one deposition process. Due to the low sputtering yield of graphite the deposition rate was low and process times were long. In order to reduce process times and increase the system capacity a new range of larger deposition systems were designed incorporating six magnetrons. This resulted in a reduction in deposition times by a factor of two, and by increasing the chamber load capacity the production coating throughput was also increased. The new UDP850/6 system is described and experiences with the use of six magnetrons in the closed field arrangement in order to maintain the optimum ion current density are discussed. Modifications to the deposition system and process parameters leading to the optimised coating are presented.
11:30 AM		G2-1-10 Growth Effects in Carbon Coatings Deposited by Magnetron Sputtering J. Vetter (Metaplas Ionon GmbH, Germany); M. Stueber, S. Ulrich, H. Holleck (Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany) Amorphous carbon coatings are characterized by a widespread property profile. They can be used in different areas including tribological, functional and biomedical applications. The variation of deposition parameters allows tailoring the properties, functions and performance of the carbon films. An upscaling of the deposition process from a laboratory level to an industrial scale is necessary to fulfill the requirements of industrial applications. Developing high-quality carbon coatings for commercial use is only available if the relations between the general conditions of the design of specific coating characteristics and their dependency on the process parameters are well-known. Carbon coatings were deposited by magnetron-sputtering from graphite targets. Special growth effects and morphologies were observed in dependence on the process parameters and analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The coating constitution and properties were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, and, by measurements of Vickers hardness, and the critical load of failure in the scratch test. It is shown that hard coatings (Vickers hardness up to 2000 HV) with a low defect density, and, dominated mainly by sp2-bondings, can be deposited with a deposition rate up to 1 micrometer/hour and a thickness up to 10 micrometers.
11:50 AM		G2-1-11 New Source with High Quality Flow for Thin Film Technologies A.S. Zolkin (Novosibirsk State University, Russia) The creation of metal vapor sources with high vapor jet intensity is connected with the solution of numerous problems ¹}. The main attention is paid to stabilization of expansion parameters:pressure and temperature of the vapor flow with high quality. Stracturelly, new source consists of two basic part: a crucible with metal and special vapor superheater(thermal radiation heater) where the liquid drops move in a circle for effective evaporation in it. Vapor is superheated before expansion in order to decrease or eliminate condensation in the nozzle region. These source allow to handle the characteristics of vapor. The intensity of the metal flow (Mg) from the nozzle is approximatily 10 ²³ atom/cm ² near the nozzle. The design and testing of a source for Ionized Molecular Beam (IMB) method are described in detail. The vaporized atoms (Ag,Pb,Mg) are partially ionized by electrons (ionizer with radial convergent beam is developed and described in detail) at the crusible exit, then accelerated in electric field up to 10 kV and deposited at 200 nm/min (and more) on the substrate of HTSC/Y-Ba-Cu-O film, CdHgTe cristals, metals, polimers. The measurements of the molecular beam have been performed by means of the mass-spectr. and electrostatic energy analyzer. In the region, near P=510 ⁴ Pa the clusters Mg_n (3 < n < 10) have been registered. Thin (100-200 nm) and thick films with high adhesion, density and low-resistance contacts Ag/Y-Ba-Cu-O ( 10^-5 - 10^-8Ohmcm²) were fabricated by IMB. The surface of the films was analyzed by SEM(SE,BSE) with computer analyzer. The Mg films on the glass, metals, mica, ceramics, Si, Ge were fabricated by IMB showed high corrosion-resistant.} $Footnotes{A.S.Zolkin. Metal vapor Sources for Scientific Research and Thin Film Technology. A Review. J.Vac.Sci. and Tech. A15 May/June 1997 p.1026-1031.