Directed Vapor Deposition: Coating Technology for the Future

The need for high-performance coatings in recent years has grown considerably as the need to compensate for the limitations of commonly available bulk materials has become more insistent. Directed vapor deposition is the only system capable of meeting highly demanding requirements for coating composition and morphology, while reducing overall costs.

The advantages that directed vapor deposition offers over existing technology include:

Non Line of Sight Deposition: A unique feature of DVD no traditional technology can offer. Unlike other vacuum deposition technologies, the high pressure gas jet carries vapor atoms into internal regions of components and then scatters them onto the internal surfaces, resulting in NLOS deposition with similar properties as the line-of-sight areas.

Multiple Source Evaporation: Another unique feature, no other methods permit as many evaporation sources. This allows the creation of alloys with precise compositional control as well as permitting complex, multi-layered coatings to be deposited in a single step.

High Deposition Rate: Vapor phase collisions between the gas jet and vapor atoms allow the flux to be "directed" onto a substrate which equates to precise control at very high deposition rates (> 10 μm min-1).

Minimal Waste: DVD has a very high Materials Utilization Efficiency, meaning it applies most of the evaporated material onto the desired substrate and not onto the chamber walls, a problem with previous technologies.

Plasma Activation: DVTI has added further versatility by incorporating hollow cathode plasma activation. This capability can be used to improve the density of DVD layers as required.

"Soft" Vacuum Chamber: Unlike earlier technologies, DVD requires only a "soft" vacuum, allowing for chamber pump-down times of a few minutes rather than the few hours needed for conventional techniques. This translates directly into increased production rates.

Lower Cost: Faster production rates, less wasted material, and increased life span of advanced coatings reduce coating costs to our customers.