PVD - Physical Vapour Deposition

Process PVD - Physical Vapour Deposition

For hard, wear resistant, and low friction coatings at relatively low temperatures (200 to 500 C). Major choice for the substrate.
Used for coating tools (mills, dies, machines parts), and for decorative purposes (many colour variants).

PVD depicts a group of processes where at least one of the reactants, not in a gas phase, is evaporated in a high vacuum chamber (10^-3 to 10^-6 mbar) by either vacuum (heat), sputtering (atomization), or arc-evaporation.

Average coating time for thickness between 1 to 5 micron is 4 h. The process isn't suitable for inner side of deep holes, but allows selective coatings and gives uniform distribution of the material on angles and irregularities.

Danish Name PVD

Category Surface treatments, Gas-phase deposition

Materials Coating materials:
Ceramics (e.g. Titanium carbide (TiC) Tungsten carbide (WC) Titanium nitride (TiN) Titanium carbon nitride (TiCN) Titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN) Chromium nitride (CrN) etc.)

Typical products Appealing bottle
Cutting blade
Drill tool
Glass frame (Ti)
Watch belt

Competing processes CVD
PACVD

References Deutsche Geselleshaft für oberflächen technik
Industrihærderiet A/S
I.S.T. Innovative Sputtering Technology

Price notes The price doesn't depend on the production volume (coating one mill costs the same as for 1000).
Parameters having a large influence on the price are: part size, complexity of the shape, functional areas to be avoided, and (slightly) material.

DKK/part	Minimum (little mill)	Average	Maximum
Price (including pre-/post-operations)	12	300-400	20000
Medium (1dm2)	120/116	25/65	0.92/5.33
Large (100dm2)	336/1384	219/1319	79/526

Price date March 1997

Environmen- tal notes No use of aggressive or poisonous reactants, nor corrosive reaction products.

Additional info Price for PVD machines varies between 4/5 to 10/12 millions DKK, depending on the technique (e.g. vacuum, sputtering). Machines don't need to be filled up, but can work for a single part as well. More expensive machines have lower operational costs.

Photo Thomas Nissen (Computer graphics)