About PVD Coating

• Physical Vapor Deposition - A little knowledge of PVD

  Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is a variety of vacuum deposition methods used to deposit thin films by the condensation of a vaporized form of the desired film material onto various workpiece surfaces.
  
  The coating method involves purely physical processes such as high temperature vacuum evaporation with subsequent condensation, or plasma sputter bombardment rather than involving a chemical reaction at the surfaceto be coated as in chemical vapor deposition.
  
  The term physical vapor deposition originally appeared in the 1966 book Vapor Deposition by C. F. Powell, J. H. Oxley and J. M. Blocher Jr., (but Michael Faraday was using PVD to deposit coatings as far back as 1838).
  
  Variants of PVD include, in alphabetical order:
  
  Cathodic Arc Deposition: In which a high power electric arc discharged at the target (source) material blasts away some into highly ionized vapor to be deposited onto the workpiece. Electron beam physical vapor deposition: In which the material to be deposited is heated to a high vapor pressure by electron bombardment in "high" vacuum and is transported by diffusion to be deposited by condensation on the (cooler) workpiece.
  
  Evaporative deposition: In which the material to be deposited is heated to a high vapor pressure by electrically resistive heating in "low" vacuum.
  
  Pulsed laser deposition: In which a high power laser ablates material from the target into a vapor.
  
  Sputter deposition: In which a glow plasma discharge (usually localized around the "target" by a magnet) bombards the material sputtering some away as a vapor for subsequent deposition.
  
  PVD is used in the manufacture of items, including semiconductor devices, aluminized PET film for balloons and snack bags, and coated cutting tools for metalworking. Besides PVD tools for fabrication special smaller tools mainly for scientific purposes have been developed. They mainly serve the purpose of extreme thin films like atomic layers and are used mostly for small substrates. A good example are mini e-beam evaporators which can deposit monolayers of virtually all materials with melting points up to 3500 °C.
  
  Each coating task, each material has its own specific needs and requirements. The coating must meet these needs and requirements to be able to add outstanding value to your tools.PVD coatings are commonly used to improve the life and productivity of production saving companies millions and billions of dollars through out the United States. The use of PVD coatings on cutting tools saves money in different ways.
  
  To begin with PVD coated tools can be run faster reducing cycle times and enabling the production of more components in less time. Fluids cost companies today a good proportion of their total production costs. High performance machining including dry machining involve extremely high temperatures at the cutting edge, PVD coatings such as AlTiN have unbelievable thermal strength, hot hardness and rust resistance as well. PVD coatings can therefore be run dry or with very limited amount of cutting fluid and save the company in the long run.
  
  References: Wikipedia