The vacuum deposition of metal oxide films by automatic control

Abstract

Over the last few years there has been rapid growth in the application of vacuum-deposited metal oxides in production optical and micro-electronic film systems. As a result, development of process control apparatus has also advanced and many of the difficulties experienced in producing reliable films from chemically active materials have been overcome. An advanced system for monitoring and controlling the automatic deposition of metal oxide coatings has been investigated by English, Putner and Holland 1, with the ultimate object of removing operator error from the deposition cycle. The work included studies and practical experimentation into the reactive evaporation of metal oxides under controlled automatic evaporation rate conditions. This work and some of the results obtained is given in more detail in the following. The historical background to the vacuum deposition of metal oxides using evaporation methods and some of the work in the last decade on its control is also discussed.