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US 6,602,390 B1Granted
Coating a workpiece and operating a cathodic arc discharge
AssigneeUnaxis Balzers Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsHans Brändle, Erich Bergmann
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process and apparatus for coating at least one workpiece utilizes a target made of an alloy which is substantially a one phase. Coating is achieved by cathodic arc evaporation of the target in an oxygen atmosphere.
Claims5
A cathodic arc evaporation coating apparatus comprising:
- a vacuum chamber;
- a cathode arrangement with a target in said chamber;
- an anode in said chamber;
- a DC generator for generating an arc evaporation current connected to said cathode arrangement and to said anode;
- an ignitor for generating a first arc discharge for a subsequent reactive cathodic arc evaporation of said target;
- an oxygen gas inlet into said vacuum chamber, connected to an oxygen supply for providing an oxygen atmosphere for the chamber;
- and
- said target being made of a metal alloy present essentially in a single phase so as to reduce occurrence of droplets during reactive cathodic arc evaporation of said metal alloy in the oxygen atmosphere.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.