ICMCTF2004 Session G5: Large Area Production Coatings: Plasma Cleaning and Pretreatment of Large Surfaces

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 8:30 AM in Room Sunrise

Wednesday Morning

Start	Invited?	Item
8:30 AM		G5-1 Large Area Hard Coating Deposition Using Plasma Activated Electron Beam Evaporation Chr. Metzner, J.-P. Heinss, B. Scheffel, O. Zywitzki (Fraunhofer Institut fuer Elektronenstrahl- und Plasmatechnik FEP, Germany) Hard coatings deposited by PVD technologies are well established in industrial use. Especially cold cathode arc evaporation is well known as a very effective technology for the coating of tools and of various engine parts. For large area coating onto metal strips and large metal sheets higher deposition rate and better layer thickness homogeneity would be desirable. Recently developed PVD technologies, especially plasma activated electron beam evaporation processes, opened a fresh ground to fit these called requirements in a better way. A lot of hard coating materials like aluminum oxide, chromium nitride, titanium and tungsten carbide as well as metal containing diamond like carbon can be deposited with these new technologies onto large areas. The deposition rate depends on the layer material and is in the range between some ten nanometers per second up to some hundreds of nanometers per second. The achieved layer properties are comparable to conventional produced hard coatings. The paper gives an overview about the new developed technologies and their applications in the field of hard coatings. First results of investigations of the layer properties will be shown. Finally, an outlook on the potential applications of the new technologies with a rough estimation concerning the process cost will be presented.
8:50 AM		G5-2 Deposition of Metal Carbides using Electron Beam High-rate Evaporation J.-P. Heinss (Fraunhofer Institut fuer Elektronenstrahl- und Plasmatechnik FEP, Germany); B. Scheffel, Chr. Metzner (Fraunhofer Institut fuer Elektronenstrahl- und Plasmatechnik FEP) Different hard coating systems deposited by PVD technologies are well established within the tool market. The deposition costs can be reduced and new fields of appli-cation can be opened if the deposition rate is increased remarkably. The paper pre-sents a new technology of high rate plasma-activated electron beam evaporation, which is able to be extended to large area depositions. The method was tested for titanium carbide and tungsten carbide on steel substrates with an area of 200 cm². Deposition rates of up to 100 nm/s were achieved. The influence of the coating pa-rameters especially of the plasma process parameters on the layer properties will be discussed. In the case of strong plasma activation dense layer structures were achieved. The measured micro hardness of the layers reached up to 25 GPa. Main layer properties are comparable with those obtained by conventionally PVD methods.
9:10 AM		G5-3 Large Area Diamond Deposition by Hot Filament CVD L. Schaefer (Fraunhofer Institut Schicht- und Oberflaechentechnik (FhG-IST), Germany); G. Bräuer (Fraunhofer Institute of Electron Beam and Plasma Technology, Germany) The paper describes technological developments in the field of polycrystalline diamond film deposition using hot-filament activated CVD processes. The aims of such developments focus on machining applications where products have already been introduced into market and on relatively new applications in the field of electrochemistry, respectively. The work is motivated on the one hand by trends in materials machining like high speed cutting and dry machining of new light weight materials. On the other hand doped, conducting diamond films exhibit new electrochemical properties beside their extreme chemical inertness. As demonstrated by examples these properties open new perspectives in the fields of water treatment, electroplating and electrochemical synthesis.
9:30 AM	Invited	G5-4 High-Rate Vapor Deposition onto Narrow MetalStrips: Current Status and Future Prospects D. Junkers (Corus Special Strip, Germany); J. Schade van Westrum (Corus Research, The Netherlands); J. Green (Thomas Steel Strip Corp.); J. Velthuis (TNO Institute of Applied Physics, The Netherlands) Continuous vapor deposition is already a well-established discipline, both in the area of web coating and in the area of semi-continuous piece coating. However, fully continuous processes for vapor deposition onto metal strips have yet to make a widespread impact in the metals industry. Over the years, there have been numerous reasons why vapor deposition onto metal strips has not been able to make greater inroads into the marketplace. Now however, new process designs have been developed that are able to overcome many of the operating challenges that had been previously associated with metal strip PVD. Furthermore, development efforts are ongoing such that additional operational improvements are foreseen. More importantly, these developments will lead to even new options for producing novel metal strip products. Corus Special Strip (CSS), a global player in the field of narrow precision strip plating and cladding, has committed itself to this new vapor deposition technology. Through the cooperation of both internal and external partners, the current state of the technology and the possible market opportunities have been identified and evaluated. Currently, in conjunction with a comprehensive marketing effort, the commitment of additional selected customers is being sought for the development of novel strip products. Based upon a strong background in the metal strip deposition industry, CSS has evaluated the merits of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) and has compared the deposit properties and performance characteristics between PVD and the other existing continuous metal strip coating processes. For coating metal strips, PVD can be considered in two ways. It can be considered as a substitution process to replace other traditional deposition technologies, or it can be considered as a supplementary technology to produce new materials for new market demands. Generally speaking, the outlook for metal strip PVD is much greater when it is considered as a supplementary technology for new markets. On the whole, PVD offers many advantages in the area of metal strip deposition. The process is environmentally-friendly and consequently avoids many of the spillover waste treatment costs associated with other coating processes. The process also affords the capability to deposit a wide variety of different metallic and non-metallic coatings. Furthermore, this deposition process can be applied onto the full range of metal strip substrate materials. As a result, a whole new spectrum of metal strip PVD products are able to be produced that would not otherwise be possible utilizing conventional technologies. The ongoing technological developments, both in industry and in research institutes, have now brought PVD technology into closer proximity with other conventional coating technologies for metal strips. Significant advances have been made in the areas of product quality, production rate, environmental performance, and costs. Additional improvements underway in the area of vapor containment, such as jet evaporators and vapor generators, will further lead to significant improvements in vapor yield, energy efficiency, and maintenance costs.
10:10 AM		G5-6 Metal Strip Coating by EB-PVD - Industrial Requirements and Customized Solutions E. Reinhold, J. Richter, U. Seyfert, C. Steuer (Von Ardenne Anlagentechnik Gmbh, Germany) During the last few years thin film applications in the metallurgical industries have been extended widely. Besides the aim of corrosion protection of strip steel a lot of coating tasks became an urgent issue, i.e. optical coatings, catalytic coatings, protective coatings and other functional coatings on various metal strips as stainless steel strips, copper strips and aluminum strips. This paper compares high rate electron beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) of Al, Ni and SiO₂ as large area processes for highly productive coating lines. The coating processes are discussed facing their application background. Special attention will be given to the substrate-layer-system regarding adhesion, thermal load and layer thickness accuracy. Industrially relevant productive solutions will be presented.
10:30 AM	Invited	G5-7 Large Area Glass Coating in the 21st Century Russ Hill (Von Ardenne Coating Technology (USA)) The use of glass in windows as a selective barrier between the occupants and the outside world is age old. Passive energy transfer can be better managed when the properties of the glass are enhanced. The properties which are manipulated are first defined qualitatively and then the energy transfer is calculated for various product types. Further passive enhancements to glass by various coatings are then discussed including, antireflection, uv blocking and heat treatable Low-E coatings. The latest sophisticated coatings which confer an active property to the glass are reviewed including ‘low maintenance’ windows, hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings, improved hardness and scratch resistance, microstructured coatings, windows and mirrors with adjustable transmittance and reflectance (electrochromic, thermochromic, suspended particle, polymer dispersed liquid crystal) and transparent photovoltaic glazing. Speculation for future directions is presented.
11:10 AM		G5-9 Pulsing Effects in Reactive Sputtering of Dielectrics J. Lopez, A. Belkind, K. Becker, W. Zhu (Stevens Institute of Technology) Pulsed DC reactive sputtering of dielectrics provides a deposition process without arcing. It is done using dc power pulsed in the range of 5-350 kHz. Using duty cycles, which could be varied between 90% and 50% plasma dynamics are studied. The main attention was devoted to time-resolved spectroscopic and other optical measurements. The optical data are compared with time-resolved Langmuir probe data collected earlier. Reactive depositions of TiO₂ and Al₂O₃ were used to analyze the pulsed plasma properties.