Author: David Douglass, Ph.D.
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Denton Vacuum LLCTo achieve thin film uniformity on flat surfaces, nearly every conventional physical vapor deposition (PVD) method requires masking, complex motion, or both. For curved surfaces, none of these methods are capable of delivering similar uniformities, which severely limits the opportunities for curved optics in real-world applications. A novel technology called inverted cylindrical magnetron (ICM) sputtering offers a viable method for achieving thickness uniformity on both flat and curved surfaces, without the use of masks and without lowering deposition rate.
This opens up many new thin film coating applications, especially for high-volume curved surfaces such as curved mirrors and ball lenses for Photonic Integrated Circuits, rod lenses for LiDAR, and EUV/lithography/instrumentation precision optics and domes for aerospace and defense applications. This technical paper compares ICM sputtering to several other PVD methods and explains how ICM can overcome process challenges while achieving thickness uniformity. You will learn how this configuration enables uniformity for multilayer coatings on flat and curved optics, with real-world data provided for a number of coating materials.