AVS 46th International Symposium
    Thin Films Division Monday Sessions
       Session TF-MoA

Paper TF-MoA9
Steel Coating by Self-induced Ion Plating, a New High Throughput Metallization Ion Plating Technique

Monday, October 25, 1999, 4:40 pm, Room 615

Session: Fundamentals and Applications of Ionized PVD
Presenter: P. Vanden Brande, Cockerill Sambre - RDCS, Belgium
Authors: P. Vanden Brande, Cockerill Sambre - RDCS, Belgium
A. Weymeersch, Cockerill Sambre - RDCS, Belgium
Correspondent: Click to Email
Ion plating techniques present major advantages for continuous steel coating in terms of throughput and product quality when compared respectively to sputtering and vacuum evaporation techniques. However, the ion plating systems available on the market today are still cumbersome and present technological difficulties for immediate implementation in high throughput air-to-air continuous steel coating plants. To address these difficulties we have developped a new ion plating technique referred to as self-induced ion plating in order to produce continuous coating on flat products. This technique is essentially based on the generation of a magnetron discharge in the sputtered and evaporated vapour produced by a tin cylindrical target. Very high deposition rates were achieved (220µm/min) with moderate values of the electrical mean power density (45W/cm@super 2@) applied to the tin target. The magnetron configuration used allowed the reduction of material side losses. This was achieved by reducing the metal escape zone area on the target side. Another feature of this technique is that the control of the heat transfer between the target and its backing plate allows the control of the target surface temperature and hence the control of the sputtered and evaporated material fractions.