Sputtering Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) Coatings: A Critical Review on Process Improvement and Market Trend Demands

Abstract

Physical vapour deposition (PVD) is a well-known technology that is widely used for the deposition of thin films regarding many demands, namely tribological behaviour improvement, optical enhancement, visual/esthetic upgrading, and many other fields, with a wide range of applications already being perfectly established. Machining tools are, probably, one of the most common applications of this deposition technique, sometimes used together with chemical vapour deposition (CVD) in order to increase their lifespan, decreasing friction, and improving thermal properties. However, the CVD process is carried out at higher temperatures, inducing higher stresses in the coatings and substrate, being used essentially only when the required coating needs to be deposited using this process. In order to improve this technique, several studies have been carried out optimizing the PVD technique by increasing plasma ionization, decreasing dark areas (zones where there is no deposition into the reactor), improving targets use, enhancing atomic bombardment efficiency, or even increasing the deposition rate and optimizing the selection of gases. These studies reveal a huge potential in changing parameters to improve thin film quality, increasing as well the adhesion to the substrate. However, the process of improving energy efficiency regarding the industrial context has not been studied as deeply as required. This study aims to proceed to a review regarding the improvements already studied in order to optimize the sputtering PVD process, trying to relate these improvements with the industrial requirements as a function of product development and market demand.

Recent Advances on Coated Milling Tool Technology—A Comprehensive Review

“…One of the most widely used oxide coatings is Al 2 O 3 . Other somewhat common coatings for cutting tools are Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC), MoS 2 and WC-C [14,16].…”

“…The PVD process, when compared to CVD, runs at a lower temperature (under 500 • C), and is more environmentally safe due to the type of materials that CVD uses. Additionally, the PVD process is more energy efficient when compared to CVD [14][15][16][17]. When selecting the type of coating desired for a tool, the machining process that is being implemented must be taken into consideration.…”

Effect of Carbon Content and Elements Mo and V on the Microstructure and Properties of Stainless Steel Powder Surfacing Layer

“…Plasma surfacing is one of the widely used methods for steel surface strengthening [1][2][3] owing to several advantages, including the wide variety of surfacing materials, low dilution rate, and high production efficiency [4,5]. Compared with thermal spraying and chemical deposition, plasma surfacing increases the bonding force of the surfacing layer formed with the matrix, resulting in metallurgical bonding and a thickness larger than that obtained using other methods [6][7][8][9][10][11]. The performance of the surfacing layer is closely linked to the material from which it is made.…”

Formation of a phase pure kesterite CZTSe thin films using multisource hybrid physical vapour deposition

“…In general, CZTSe films are fabricated using conventional non-vacuum based methods such as ball milling, sol-gel, electro deposition, spray-pyrolysis and vacuum based techniques such as co-evaporation, sputtering, e-beam evaporation methods etc [14][15][16][17][18][19]. For solar cell applications the films fabricated by hydrazine-based solution process have achieved a maximum power conversion efficiency of 12.6% [20,21].…”