By IMT Masken und Teilungen AG
Coatings: technologies and systems for mass production Electron beam evaporation and thermal evaporation Evaporation in a vacuum via electron beam evaporators or thermal vaporisers has come into use for coating optical components and substrates for lithographic processes. This technology allows for the production of a number of metallic coatings such as chrome, aluminium, gold, titanium, black chrome (low reflection chrome) and other metals of high quality and with a coating thickness of a few nanometres up to several hundred nanometres. With the expansion of thermal evaporation and electron beam evaporation via substrate heating at 100 to 300°C or via a plasma source, it is also possible to produce optical coatings, known as interference coatings, of high optical quality. These fulfil a range of functions, including antireflection coatings, optical filters such as band-pass filters, UV or IR filters, colour filters, Fabry-Perot filters, beam splitters and dielectric mirrors. Magnetron sputtering The sputter coating takes place using gas discharge and the resulting kinetic energy of ions. These ions shoot atoms from the source of the coating material to the target. This ‘sputtered’ material then condenses on the substrate. By means of the sputter process, we achieve an excellent coating quality on a number of metals such as chrome, aluminium, chrome nickel, titanium, tantalum, niobium and silicon. In the reactive sputter processes, it is also possible to deposit dielectric coatings such as SiO 2, Al 2 O 3, CrO, Ti 2 O 3, Ta 2 O 5, Nb 2 O 5, Si 3 N 4 and TiN. Due to the high kinetic energy resulting from the ionisation of the sputter gases, sputter coatings have a higher density than evaporated coatings. This has a positive effect on losses due to diffused light, thermal stability, optical density and mechanical stability. IMT uses both technologies – evaporation and magnetron sputtering – for metallic and optical coatings. We would be very happy to help you with the design and simulation of optical coatings for your application. Please don’t hesitate to contact our coating design specialists. Coating systems for PVD and magnetron sputtering Format: 200mm-Wafer Batch size: </= 16 Wafer Substrate: Fused Silica, B270, Borofloat, D263, other materials on request Thickness: >0,3 mm
