High-Efficiency of PVD Coating Process by Applying an Additional Rotation

Abstract

This article analyzes PVD coatings (physical vapor deposition—the coating material is vaporized and deposited by sputtering or arc evaporation, and PVD coatings are applied at lower substrate temperatures and thus can be applied to a wider range of substrates) applied to samples which are located in a fixture. This fixture enables additional rotation of the sample via the coating process. The fixture allows an increase of coated tools in one batch, and therefore an increase of the current capacity of the coating machine. The introductory section of the article describes the process of product design, including its modifications. The experimental section is focused on the functionality checking of the proposed design. The coating process was carried out on a machine named INNOVA. To guarantee the correct coating application during the process, it is necessary to research the coating thickness and the chemical composition of the samples and compare these results with the results of samples which were coated without using a designed fixture. Round bars with a diameter of 10 mm were chosen as test samples. On these samples, a FUTURA monolayer was applied on a TiAlN base. Chemical composition and coating thickness were evaluated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Using a fixture with a fourth rotation, the same chemical composition and coating thickness were achieved as those samples which were coated in a process without the use of a fourth rotation. Therefore, it was possible to confirm a capacity increase of the coating machine.