A roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber comprising:
- (a) a first plurality of nozzles A for continuously flowing a precursor A into said roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber;
- (b) a second plurality of nozzles B for continuously flowing a precursor B into said roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber;
- (c) said first plurality of nozzles A and said second plurality of nozzles B arranged linearly in A/B pairs in a direction perpendicular to a motion of a flexible web of a substrate, said motion occurring at a constant speed from a first roll to a second roll of said roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber, and said motion occurring underneath said A/B pairs, wherein a first spacing between each of said first plurality of nozzles A in each of said A/B pairs is approximately half of a distance between the lower ends of said A/B pairs and said flexible web, and wherein a second spacing between each of said second plurality of nozzles B in each of said A/B pairs is also approximately half of said distance between the lower ends of said A/B pairs and said flexible web;
- (d) an evacuation pump underneath an end of said flexible web near said second roll for evacuating unused quantities of said precursor A and said precursor B;
- (e) said second plurality of nozzles comprising a plurality of corresponding electron cyclotron resonance (ECR)-enhanced hollow cathode plasma sources (HCPSes) for producing a plasma of said precursor B, wherein said plurality of corresponding ECR-enhanced HCPSes comprise a plurality of corresponding cylindrical and aligned magnets around a plurality of corresponding hollow cathodes;
- and
- (f) a ceramic plug with a pinhole placed underneath each of said second plurality of nozzles for allowing said activated neutrals of said precursor B to pass into said roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber while preventing said plasma to pass into said roll-to-roll vacuum deposition chamber and to come in contact with said flexible web;
- wherein nucleates from said precursor A and said activated neutrals of precursor B undergo a self-limiting reaction on a surface of said flexible web and consequently deposit one or more atomically sized layers of uniform thickness on said surface by atomic layer deposition (ALD) without requiring intervening purge and exhaust operations, and wherein:
- (g) a distance between the lower ends of said first plurality and said second plurality of nozzles and said flexible web is substantially in the range of 1 inch to 2 inches;
- (h) a spacing between each of said first plurality of nozzles is substantially in the range of 0.5 inch to 1 inch;
- (i) a spacing between each of said second plurality of nozzles is substantially in the range of 0.5 inch to 1 inch;
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- (j) a spacing between said first plurality of nozzles and said second plurality of nozzles is greater than 2 inches.