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PulsPlasma® CVD Process Description

Plasma assisted chemical coating techniques (plasma CVD) have long been used in the manufacture of components in the electronics industry for the deposition of a wide range of thin coating layers - conductive, non-conductive and semi-conductive. More recent applications have been developed in corrosion protection with thin coatings (approx. 5 to 10 µm) of extremely hard materials such as titanium carbide, titanium nitride or aluminium oxide. The deposition of amorphous or diamond-like carbon (DLC) layers is also gaining more and more importance. The first process to be used to produce these hard material layers was the thermal chemical vapour deposition (CVD), which requires temperatures of around 1000° C.

As a result of the partial ionization of the process gas (plasma) the chemical reaction required for deposition can occur at temperatures of approx. 500° C. Indexable inserts coated with titanium nitride by plasma CVD have already proved outstanding in practice. The low coating temperature protects the substrate materials and produces a fine-grain, firmly adhering coating.

Carbides and hardmetal indexable inserts

forming and cutting tools in tool

and high speed steels