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Question related to the lecture four

1. What is PVD coating?


Answer:
Physical vapor deposition (PVD) covers a broad class of vacuum coating processes
in which material is physically removed from a source by evaporation or sputtering,
transported through a vacuum or partial vacuum by the energy of the vapor
particles, and condensed as a film on the surfaces of appropriately placed parts or
substrates.
OR
Physical Vapor Deposition, or PVD, is a term used to describe a family of coating
processes. The most common of these PVD coating processes are evaporation, and
sputtering. All of PVD processes occur in vacuum at working pressure (typically 10-2 to
10-6 mbar), reactive gases such as nitrogen, acetylene or oxygen may be introduced into
the vacuum chamber during metal deposition to create various compound coating
compositions.
OR
Physical vapor deposition describes a variety of vacuum deposition methods that can be
used to produce thin films and coatings. Physical vapor deposition is characterized by a
process in which the material goes from a condensed phase to a vapor phase and then
back to a thin film condensed phase.
OR
Physical vapour deposition (PVD) is a thin-film coating process which produces coatings
of pure metals, metallic alloys and ceramics with a thickness usually in the range 1 to
10µm. Physical vapour deposition, as its name implies, involves physically depositing
atoms, ions or molecules of a coating species on to a substrate.
OR

The PVD technique is a process in which a thin film deposition occurs on the surface of
a material, growing atom by atom on the substrate. The physical deposition of vapor
consists of a physical-thermal collision process that transforms the material to be
deposited, called the target, into atomic particles, which are directed to the substrates in a
gaseous plasma state through a vacuum atmosphere, generating a physical coating by
condensation of projected atoms.
2. What is the functional PVD coating?
Functional PVD coatings is that coating which are engineered to improve the life and
overall performance of a tool or component; thereby, reducing the cost-per-part in
manufacturing and improving the corrosion, wear resistance, electrical properties and so
on. Examples of functional PVD coating would be Titanium Nitride (TiN) on a HSS end
mill.

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3. What is Decorative PVD coating?
Decorative PVD coatings are that coatings which deposited to improve the appearance of
a part, as well as to provide some corrosion and wear resistance characteristics (
improvements to both form and function). Due to its excellent wear and corrosion
resistance, PVD is often used to give parts enhanced performance and a brilliant
decorative finish.
An example of decorative PVD coating would be the deposition of a Zr-based film onto a
stainless steel door handle in order to provide a brass colored coating, but with a wear
and tarnish resistance greater than real brass.

4. What are the most commonly used forms the PVD Techniques represent the
process schematically?
The most common physical vapor deposition processes are sputtering evaporation and
Arc vapor deposition.
a) Evaporation (This method is the one of the most well-known physical deposition
methods.
The deposited material is created in a vapor form by heating bulk material in vacuum
with resistive heater. The vapor atoms are transported through vacuum to get deposited
on desired substrate. This vapour deposition is done only at pressure less than 10-5
torr.)
OR
Thermal evaporation uses the heating of a material to form a vapour which condenses on
a substrate to form the coating. Heating is achieved by various methods including hot
filament, electrical resistance, electron or laser beam and electric arc.
b) Sputtering involves the electrical generation of a plasma between the coating
species and the substrate. (using magnetic enhanced sources or “magnetrons”,
cylindrical or hollow cathode sources).
OR
A plasma at higher pressure is used to “knock” metal atoms out of a “target”. These
energetic atoms deposit on a wafer located near the target. The higher pressure
produces better step coverage due to more random angled delivery. The excess energy
of the ions also aids in increasing the surface mobility (movement of atoms on the
surface)In this process, the sputtered high-energy ions will fly towards the substrate
ballistically and get deposited layer by layer to form the coating.
c) Arc vapor deposition
The cathodic arc is a low-voltage, high-current plasma discharge that takes place
between two metallic electrodes in vacuum.

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Cathodic arc deposition or Arc-PVD is a physical vapor deposition technique in
which an electric arc is used to vaporize material from a cathode target. The
vaporized material then condenses on a substrate, forming a thin film. The technique
can be used to deposit metallic, ceramic, and composite films. The temperature at the
cathode spot is extremely high which results in a high velocity jet of vaporized
cathode material.
The cathode spot is only active for a short period of time
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5. What is CVD coating, show schematic drawing of the assembled CVD setup?
Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) is an atmosphere controlled process conducted at
elevated temperatures (~1100Co) in a CVD reactor. During this process, thin-film
coatings are formed as the result of reactions between various gaseous phases and the
heated surface of substrates within the CVD reactor. As different gases are transported
through the reactor, distinct coating layers are formed on the tooling substrate. For
example, TiN is formed as a result of the following chemical reaction:
TiCl4 + N2 + H2 (at1000° C) → TiN + 4 HCl + H2.
Titanium carbide (TiC) is formed as the result of the following chemical reaction:
TiCl4 + CH4 + H2 (at1030° C) → TiC + 4 HCl + H2.
The final product of these reactions is a hard, wear-resistant coating that exhibits a
chemical and metallurgical bond to the substrate
OR
The Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is a process where one or more volatile
precursors are transported via the vapour phase to the reaction chamber, where they
decompose on a heated substrate.
In the broadest sense chemical vapour deposition (CVD) involves the formation of a thin
solid film on a substrate material by a chemical reaction of vapour-phase precursors.

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6. What are the a)general types of the CVD processes classification and b) two main
film structure classification?
a)
1- Thermal CVD (heating the gas and/or the substrate)
2- Plasma CVD (excitation by electrons in a plasma where the electrons are accelerated
by an electric field)
3- Laser CVD (excitation by light source, laser or broadband)
b) CVD sometimes classified by film structure or growth mechanism, and described
as Epitaxy or Vapor Phase Epitaxy, It is also be denoted as
1. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)
2. Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ALE)?

7. What are the processing temperatures and pressure for PVD and CVD coatings?
The standard processing temperatures for our PVD coatings can range from 200Co-450Co
. and vacuum environments with pressures on the order of 10‐6 torr = 1.3 x 10‐4 pascals
CVD processing temperatures will reach 600 to 1100°C and is a vacuum deposition
method working pressure can be below 10−6 Pa (≈ 10−8 torr).

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