Thin film forming method and apparatus
AssigneeHoya Corporation
InventorsYukihiro Takahashi, Kenichi Shinde
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Abstract
To provide a thin film forming method and apparatus that can automatically form thin films having constant optical properties with high reproducibility Antireflection films are deposited on lenses 2a that are held by a coating dome 2 by vaporizing an evaporation material 4 by using an electron gun 3 The power to be applied to the electron gun 3 is controlled so that a transmission or reflection light quantity value that is measured at each time point by an optical film thickness meter 10 becomes equal or approximately equal to a standard light quantity value stored in a standard light quantity value data storing means
Claims25
A thin film forming method, comprising steps of:
- forming a thin film of a substance on an object by deposition by vaporizing the substance;
- measuring of a thickness of the thin film deposited on the object during deposition using an optical film thickness meter to measure light quantity values of transmission or reflection, wherein the optical film thickness meter measures the thickness of a thin film using the light quantity value of transmission or reflection when a prescribed light is applied to the object on which the thin film is formed, and wherein the light quantity value depends on the thickness of the thin film;
- and;
- controlling the vaporizing with a controller using the signals from said optical film thickness meter, by comparing actual light quantity value variation versus time with stored standard light quantity value variations over time measured when a film is formed on a standard object.
The thin film forming method of 3, wherein said substance comprises ZrO2.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.