A novel rectilinear ion source for direct metal ion beam deposition (abstract)

Abstract

A novel rectilinear ion beam disposition technique has been developed for the direct metal ion beam deposition over a large area. The technology is based on the patent pending solid-state cesium ion beam technology. This technique has several unique advantages: (1) Due to the rectilinear shape of the ion beam, the ion beam length is expandable to any size up to several meters; (2) The technique uses no carrier gas or gas medium to generate the ion beams, thus, it is very compact and economical; (3) It is capable of producing various negative metal ion beams such as C, Si, Au, Ni, Fe, Mo, W, etc.; (4) The ion source is operating in a low energy range (10–500 eV) and it is ideal for the direct ion beam disposition. The prototype of the ion source has produced superior quality amorphous diamond films which exhibited superior hardness (≳60 GPa), low wear rate (<108 mm3/Nm), low friction coefficient (<0.1) and high transparency. Furthermore the coatings contain no hydrocarbon impurities, and exhibit atomically smooth surfaces (<1 nm Ra) on the as-grown materials.