Historical Papers

Historical papers of interest to vacuum coaters, that are not otherwise readily available, are placed in this section of the SVC Web Site. Visitors to the Web Site are invited to submit references to other similar meetings or discussions that they may have in their personal archives. Please send this information to Don Mattox.

1. The Application of Metallic Fluoride Reflection Reduction Films to Optical Elements. – PDF File – 1.6 MB 

This is a Record of a Conference held at the Frankford Arsenal in October, 1943. The Record lists companies and individuals involved in the war time development and production of antireflection (AR) coatings on optics in the United States of America. The Record relates the discussions held at that conference. SVC gratefully acknowledges Collin Alexander who provided SVC with a copy of the Record.

2. Operation and Maintenance of Optical Coating Equipment – PDF File – 15.6 MB 

“OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF OPTICAL COATING EQUIPMENT” – WAR OFFICE 1945

The complete text of TM 9-1501 “OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF OPTICAL COATING EQUIPMENT” the manual for optical coating published by the War Office in early 1945.  This document shows the state-of-the-art of coating optics as used during the last years of WWII.  The manual was loaned to SVC by Ric Shimshock.

3. A Discussion on "The Making of Reflecting Surfaces" – PDF File – 4.3 MB

This is the published record (Fleetwood Press) of a meeting of The Physical Society of London and The Optical Society held on the 26th of November, 1920. The papers are on both chemical formation of reflecting coatings and vacuum coating including plasma cleaning. On paper "A Bibliography of the More Important Papers on the Construction and Nature of Reflecting Surfaces" by R. Kanthack covers the history of making reflecting surfaces back to 1798. The original copy of this document was loaned by Don Mattox.

4. Sputtering by Ion Bombardment – PDF File – 14.2 MB

"Sputtering by Ion Bombardment", Gottfried K. Wehner, pp. 239-298 in Advances in Electronics and Electron Physics, Vol. VII, edited by L. Marton, Academic Press, 1955

Review of the understanding of the sputtering process as of 1955, study of sputtering yields, use of mercury ions for sputtering, and references to past work. The document isprovided by Don Mattox.

5. Cathode Sputtering, A Commercial Application – PDF File – 640 KB

"Cathode Sputtering, A Commercial Application", H.F. Furth, Physics 2, 280 (1932)

This article provides a description of coating adherent gold films on metallic duralimin diaphragms for use in carbon microphones by Western Electric. Extensive Bibliography. The document is provided by Don Mattox.

6. A Crossed-field Discharge Device for High Rate Sputtering – PDF File – 7 MB

"A Crossed-field Discharge Device for High Rate Sputtering", James R. Mullaly, A Dow Chemical, Rocky Flats Plant report (RFP-1310, November 13, 1969 [declassified])

This work preceded the development of the closed-field planar magnetron sputtering apparatus by VacTech. Ted Van Vorous and John Chapin worked at the Rocky Flats Plant and left to form VacTech. The document is provided by Don Mattox.

7. "Electrical deposition" in a gas discharge (1877) – PDF File – 1.1 MB

Arthur W. Wright "On the Production of Transparent Metallic Films by the Electrical Discharge in Exhausted Tubes", The American Journal of Science And Arts (Third Series) Vol. XIII, Nos. 73-78, Article VII, pp.49-55 (1877)
and
Arthur W. Wright "On a New Process for the Electrical Deposition of Metals, and for Constructing Metal-covered Glass Specula", The American Journal of Science And Arts (Third Series) Vol. XIV, Nos. 79-84, Article XXII, pp.169-178 (1877)

This was some early work on making reflecting surfaces. The documents are provided by Don Mattox.

8. Monarch L. Cutler, "Reflection of Light From Multi-layer Films," B.S. Thesis, MIT - 1939. - PDF - 7.8 MB

Early calculations on optical filter design.

To quote Angus Mcleod "Glieck was right about Feynman's being a genius, but not completely correct about the nonexistence of multiple beam multilayer theory. That had been worked out rather earlier but a lot was in the European literature and likely not very accessible to Cutler nor to Feynman. But the idea of designing thin-film filters is really important. Almost all of the work had been on calculating existing structures, not designing new ones. Interesting story."

The document is provided by Don Mattox.

9. "Electrical Evaporation" Crookes (1891) - PDF - 4.3 MB

William Crookes "On Electrical Evaporation" Scientific American, Vol. XXXII, Supplement No. 811, pp. 12958-12960 (July 18, 1891)

Also published as: William Crookes, "On Electrical Evaporation" Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 50, Article II, pp. 88-105, (1891-1892)

This is perhaps the first "popular" description of the sputter deposition method. The document is provided by Don Mattox.