Warner-Lambert Company

George C Lane

Cyril A Cartwright

Keith W Elmslie

An apparatus and method for sequentially cleaning and coating articles. The apparatus is in the form of a multi-chamber device, with each chamber being partially defined by valve units which permit passage of articles to be coated therethrough. Each chamber has associated therewith means for drawing a vacuum therein, several chambers include means for leaking a minute quantity of an inert but ionizable gas therein, and at least one chamber further includes at least one electrode, which may be placed in electrical communication with the articles so as to establish, in one of several ways, a direct current bias on the article with respect to another point within the chamber. Coating material to be transferred to the article is placed on one electrode, preferably in the form of a flat plate, in those chambers in which coating is to take place, whereas target material is not present in the cleaning or other non-coating chambers. One chamber is provided to serve as an air lock so that articles may be removed from it into the air while the chamber is sealed off from an adjacent chamber so as to prevent atmospheric contamination of coating material or articles to be coated in a coating chamber. Means are provided for moving articles successively from one chamber to another so that the articles may be introduced into one chamber, cleaned, coated by passage into one or more succeeding chambers, and then removed through a last, vacuum or air lock chamber. Cleaning occurs by reverse sputtering, sputter etching, or glow discharge, and coating occurs by diode sputtering of a target material from a target electrode onto the substrate or article to be coated.

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Danbury, CT, United States of America

George C Lane