Plasma-ion assisted deposition is a new type of deposition technology that, compared to conventional technologies, allows enhanced optical and non-optical characteristics of the deposited layers. At first, as with conventional methods, the source materials for the optical layers are converted into the gaseous state through reactive electron-beam evaporation in high vacuum. Then a bombardment of argon ions supports the growth of the deposits on the substrates. For this, a plasma is ignited in the coating chamber.

 

The layers generated this way have a packing density near the ideal value of 1. Compared to conventionally generated layers, this brings about a higher refractive index of the layers, prevents the layers almost completely from water absorption, and produces amorphous, hard, low-loss and durable layers. The deposition of ion-assisted layers does not require any additional heating up of the substrates. Their temperature load is caused only by the thermal radiation occurring during the operation of the electron-beam evaporator and the plasma source (approx. 100°C).

 

Layers generated by plasma-ion assisted deposition technology are indispensable for numerous new applications of optical coatings. They allow complex thin-film designs with far more than 100 layers, any deposit thickness and very thin deposits (needle layers). Thin-film systems like these show considerable new performance parameters, e.g. for anti-reflective (AR) coatings, band-pass filters, and edge filters.
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