Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/23

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Subject: Re: [Leica] PVD
From: Tom Christiansen <tomchr@softhome.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 09:35:21 -0700

At 09:45 AM 7/23/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>In my previous posting about the deposition of titanium onto a
>substrate, I noted that PVD stands for physical vapor deposition. I
>was wrong PVD means plasma vapor deposition. I apologize for any
>inconvenience my comment may have caused.

Yeah, plasmas are usually used to etch stuff away with - not deposit 
stuff... :-)

BTW, PVD works by bringing a source of coating material to a boil (happens 
in low vacuum). The vapors of coating material condenses on the item which 
needs the coating applied. That's all there is to it... The trick is to 
make the coating stick. This is often done by using a metal with good 
"sticking characteristics" as an adhesion layer for the final layer of 
coating. E.g. for gold plating, chromium is often used as the adhesion layer.

Tom

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