High-rate physical vapour deposition in combination with plasma processes for metal strip coating

Low cost coating on metallic sheets and strips can be achieved by Physical vapour Deposition only if a very high deposition rate of more than some micrometers per second can be realized. A lot of metals, alloys and compounds as oxides and nitrides can be deposited with a very high rate by electron beam evaporation. New fields of application have been revealed by a combination the electron beam evaporation with additional dense plasma processes. The process parameters of pre-treatment, evaporation, plasma activated deposition and post-treatment sensibly define the properties of the coatings in a wide range. The paper gives an overview about the new high rate PVD processes and describes their potential for industrial metal strip coating. Properties and applications of some new layer stacks based on titanium, stainless steel, magnesium and oxides onto steel sheets or galvanized steel sheets are presented. A new in-line deposition equipment for metallic strips and sheets with a width up to 500 mm and a substrate speed up to 1 meter per second offers the possibility to investigate the vacuum coating processes under industrial like conditions