Corrosion-resistant internal coating method using a germanium-containing precursor and hollow cathode techniques

A method of coating an interior surface of a workpiece comprising:

• connecting a biasing system such that said workpiece functions as an electrode;
• controlling pressure within an interior of said workpiece such that a cooperation between said biasing system and said pressure establishes a hollow cathode effect within said interior;
• forming a uniform, adhesion-promoting, corrosion-resistance layer on said interior surface, including repetitive cycling of deposition and exposure steps, wherein each deposition step includes introducing a germanium-containing precursor within said interior so as to deposit a portion of the uniform, adhesion-promoting, corrosion-resistance layer, and wherein each exposure step includes exposing said uniform, adhesion-promoting, corrosion-resistance layer to high energy bursts from a plasma that provides activation energy to form an interfacial compound, deposition of the uniform, adhesion-promoting, corrosion-resistance layer from each deposition step exceeding etchback from each exposure step;
• forming a sequence of blend layers on the adhesion-promoting corrosion-resistance layer using an increasing relative concentration of hydrocarbon precursors for successive blend layers;
• and
• forming a second layer on said blend layers, said second layer being a layer of diamond-like carbon (DLC), including utilizing a high intensity plasma available as a consequence of said hollow cathode effect during formation of said corrosion-resistance layer and said second layer.