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With the growing need for lower temperatures in thermal processing, reliable non-contact temperature measurement systems are critical. Measurement of coatings, substrates, thin-films, and materials at lower temperatures where source emission drops below desired ranges require repeatable and reliable process control. Example applications include thermal ALD, and CVD processes. Alternatively, in-situ low temperature measurements can be provided by devices that require physical contact with the measurement material or adjacent. These contact-based devices can have limitations where a non-contact method can, in some cases, overcome a number of these limitations.
Additional challenges arise in the pursuit of accurate and reliable low-temperature, non-contact measurements. Calibration of these measurement devices often require highly specialized equipment and test standards which themselves necessitate rigorous process standardization. A solid foundation in calibration methodology should be well understood by those who supply and/or maintain devices that measure temperature to a significant degree of accuracy.
This presentation covers challenges and best practices of non-contact measurements at temperatures at or below 250°C. In addition, the importance of calibrating those devices should be well understood, and the challenges associated are taken into consideration.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0012

The competition in the global market increases the need for innovation. Companies must be faster due to shorter life cycles and facing the challenge of less financial and human resources. Open innovation has the chance to solve these challenges but has risks as well. The fundamentals of open innovation will be discussed in respect to the thin film vacuum coating industry. Europe has a great ecosystem for open innovation for thin film coating with industry, a lot of institutes, universities, and public funding. All these pieces of the puzzle must be setup in the right way to generate great results from open innovation. The European Union created 28 Open Innovation Test Beds (OTIB) to showcase how it can work. Several of these OITB cover vacuum coating technologies or relevant characterisation and modelling tools. KETMarket is the Single-Entry Point of two OTIBs FlexFuction2Sustain and Convert2Green. FlexFunction2Sustain utilizes vacuum coating technology to advance the properties of novel, emerging, ecofriendly plastic and paper web materials towards sustainable products such as organic solar cells on recycled plastic substrates. Convert2Green involves vacuum coating as a tool to enable the use of circular materials innovations for smart textiles, advanced medical packaging, automotive parts and more.
KETMarket will showcase how the European Open Innovation Ecosystem can support innovative companies in advancing with their materials and coatings development and in accessing new markets in Europe and worldwide.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0010

As greater demands are placed upon manufacturing, coatings by physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and plasma-assisted CVD (PACVD) are in many cases essential to increase productivity and to ensure excellent product quality while minimizing production downtime and scrap rate in forming and molding tool applications.
CrN coatings with and without the addition of tungsten remains an excellent choice for many forming applications. However, the wear properties at elevated temperatures under certain tribological conditions, such as observed in high temperature Pin on Disking (POD) Testing can be improved.
One approach that can be used to improve the high temperature tribology of CrN is to deposit a Cr_xO_y or (CrW)_xO_y top layer over CrN or CrWN, respectively.
This paper details the investigation of the tribological properties at room temperature, 400°C, 600°C and 800°F of CrN + Cr_xO_y as well as CrWN + (CrW)_xO_y deposited in commercial PVD arc chambers. The industrial applications where such coatings have benefited are in certain hot forging, die casting, and plastic molding applications.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0042

Single-component metal oxide films of alumina (Al₂O₃) and silica (SiO₂) grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) have been well-characterized for their barrier properties. Neither SiO₂, nor Al₂O₃ exhibit robust barrier performance individually, but it has been previously shown that combining those binary oxide films to form ternary oxide (AlSiO) improves barrier performance, particularly in resilience to damp heat conditions. Previous methods for creating ternary metal oxides have been achieved by alternating layers to create nanolaminate structures, or by alternating ALD cycles between the two materials to create a homogeneous mixture. In this work, aluminum and silicon precursors are simultaneously co-delivered in a single vapor stream to grow a homogeneous mixture of AlSiO via a process that exhibits well-behaved, tunable composition control. It is shown that mixing these constituents within a specific compositional range results in optimal barrier performance, even in exposure to damp heat. This ALD process, featuring spatial precursor separation and plasma-enabled oxidation, provides a path to high-speed deposition at low substrate temperatures for growth of thin ultra-barrier coatings in batch, sheet-to-sheet, and roll-to-roll platforms.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0003

Tungsten trioxide (WO₃) thin films are very well known for their efficient electrochromic properties under the double insertion and extraction of various suitable ions and electrons. Although both the amorphous and polycrystalline WO₃ thin films exhibit an efficient coloration in the visible and nearinfrared spectral regions from an initial transparent state under the double insertion, the underlying phenomenon leading to this coloration is quite different. In the amorphous films it is the absorption modulation while it is reflectance modulation in the polycrystalline state. In the former case, the coloration takes place due to the intervalence transfer of electrons from one site to the other in the mixed valence WO₃ films through the absorption of light (polaron absorption). However, the coloration in the polycrystalline films is due to the reflectance arising from the free electrons injected into the host material (plasma frequency edge displacement). However, in most commonly used deposition conditions in which a polycrystalline film is expected to be formed, it can be surmised that the WO₃ film is composed of polycrystallites held in an amorphous host material. This leads to an electrochromic coloration arising from a combination of absorption and reflectance modulation. In the present work, we have undertaken a systematic study of the electrochromic evolution of WO₃ films deposited under different conditions and subjected to dry lithiation using lithium niobate (LiNbO₃) powder under controlled heat treatment. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the as-deposited and colored films have been measured using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), four-point probe and a UV-Vis-NIR double beam spectrophotometer. Hall effect measurements have been carried out to calculate the free electron density (ne) inserted into the WO₃ film and correlated with the effective lithium film thickness measured by quartz crystal method. Preliminary results of this work are presented here.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0007

High-performance, complex systems for coating and deposition need to deliver reliable operation over many years, during which time equipment is likely to be in use for up to 24 hours a day. System operators demand stable, repeatable processes that keep operational costs as low as possible without compromising quality. As with any high-power application, a key focus for cost reduction is the price of energy used. One way to minimize energy costs is to employ power architectures that improve power factor by reducing total harmonic distortion (THD). This leads to increased efficiency, lowering utility bills and eliminating the cost of hardware filtering. Better power factor also minimizes the risk of penalties to utility companies as they seek to cover the cost of wasted energy and the need for larger equipment. In this presentation, Advanced Energy will consider the power demands of high-power coating and deposition processes and explain how using digital silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCRs) with voltage sequence control (VSC) in electrical heating zones can minimize operating expenses (OPEX) by delivering THD reductions that improve power factor.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0037

In fusion neutral gas analysis, such as with the Diagnostic Residual Gas Analyzer (DRGA) for ITER, the primary measurement range of interest comprises the low-amu species (1 to 6), especially deuterium and helium. The challenge in successfully obtaining accurate measurements is two-fold. First, the sensitivity of the method must be sufficient to resolve trace amounts accurately; typically, one percent or less. Second, the gas signal from the fusion processes must be free of bias caused by the latent presence (from system outgassing and/or vacuum backstreaming) of these gases to enable accurate interpretation of the measured signal. This latter criterion can be problematic for the lightest gases since there is a propensity for some fraction of the pumped gas load to undergo a phenomenon known as backstreaming. This behavior is manifested in pumping systems for gas properties related to relative atomic weight (lightest) and size (smallest). Backstreaming results in a significant amount of the pumped gas undertaking a reverse flow and re-entering the measurement region; thus, contaminating the forward, real-time measurement. To fully eliminate this adverse effect, a conductance-limiting device – or orifice – has been installed in the high-vacuum pumping system of the present ITER DRGA prototype. The system was already equipped with a secondary turbomolecular pump (TMP), but with limited effectiveness against backstreaming in the inter-pump volume (IPV). This orifice is placed within the suction inlet coupling of the secondary TMP, which is downstream of the IPV. Its objective is to eliminate the backstreaming phenomenon by increasing the back pressure in the IPV. However, the orifice sizing must take into consideration other factors, such as the diagnostic measurement objectives. For example, in the ITER DRGA, one of the measurement requirements is a dynamic response time of ~1s. Fortunately, an added benefit of the pumping restriction created by the orifice is that the upstream pressure increase is beneficial for the DRGA’s optical gas analysis (OGA) sensors. These sensors are attached to the IPV in the present design. The glow discharges, when used as an OGA light source, will typically have a brighter light emission with increasing plasma cell pressure. In addition to the fusion machine research sector, there are other potential applications of this pumping technique where the monitoring of lighter gas concentrations is essential, such as the photolithography process for the semiconductor fabrication of integrated circuits. This presentation will describe the vacuum system used to demonstrate a process to eliminate backstreaming as well as show test results to verify the accomplishment of this critical objective.

https://doi.org/10.14332/svc24.proc.0035

Over the past several years, a growing amount of scientific data have been collected to examine various performance characteristics of switchable glass technologies. However, very little marketing-related information has been assembled to assist business managers in the development of new product strategies pertaining to switchable glass. This paper focuses on the results of a set of interviews of executives and managers involved in new product planning or product development at United States window manufacturers. The survey examined attitudes and expectations for switchable glass window products. Having obtained these measurements, business managers and strategists can more accurately understand and plan for the needs and desires of a key segment of firms involved in the delivery of switchable products to the market. This paper initially describes the methodology used to collect the data. Following that, it examines awareness and knowledge levels of switchable glass technology, the perceived importance of various product attributes to end-users, expectations for the adoption of the technology by window manufacturers and end-users, and estimates of price sensitivity among window manufacturers. The paper concludes with an assessment of the pace of new product launches among window manufacturers and a discussion of the implications for managers interested in furthering the development of the market for switchable glass.

Oxide coated PET films, produced by EB-evaporation are today a commercial reality in Europe and Japan as barrier materials in food packaging. Process improvements, involving plasma pretreatment, ion-assisted evaporation and special evaporation material compositions have now led to new products and applications, like retortable “water-clear” oxide coated barrier films, high barrier oxide coated oPA films, and low cost oxide coated oPP films. Also the technology holds the potential for the creation of new products in technical and security applications.

During the 1998 SVC Annual Technical Conference, I had the opportunity to introduce HOSTAPHAN^® RHB 12, a new, three layer coextruded PET film, tailored to give ultra high barrier after metallization or coating with ceramic barrier layers like SiO_x or Al₂O₃. At last year’s conference I reported about problems which occurred in the early stages of commercialization of the film and their solutions as well as the first commercial and developmental packaging structures based on HOSTAPHAN^® RHB 12. In this presentation I want to highlight some more laminates which are in the market as well as further developments which should be seen on the shelves in the near future.