Oerlikon Trading Ag, Truebbach

Balzers Aktiengesellschaft

Oerlikon Trading Ag, Trubbach

Oc Oerlikon Balzers Ltd.

Hubert Eberle

Orlaw Massler

Christian Wohlrab

Mauro Pedrazzini

Martin Grischke

Patrick Gschwend

Thorsten Michler

Vacuum treatment installation particularly for plasma coating workpieces has an arrangement for boosting and/or igniting a glow discharge plasma for the treatment of workpieces, and at least one hollow body of electrically conductive material, the hollow body including a hollow space and at least one entrance opening through which charge carriers flow in order to make possible ignition and operation of a plasma or to boost an existing plasma.

Plasma booster for plasma treatment installation

Vacuum treatment installation particularly for plasma coating workpieces, has an arrangement for boosting and/or igniting a glow discharge plasma for the treatment of workpieces, and at least one hollow body of electrically conductive material, the hollow body including a hollow space and at least one entrance opening through which charge carriers flow in order to make possible ignition and operation of a plasma or to boost an existing plasma. The hollow body is electrically connected to workpieces so that the hollow body is essentially at workpiece potential. The hollow space is formed such that when an electric signal is applied to the hollow body, at least in a certain pressure and voltage range, geometric conditions for the ignition of a discharge in the interior of the hollow body are satisfied, and the at least one hollow body is not a workpiece carrier.

An arrangement for boosting or igniting a glow discharge plasma for coating workpieces has at least one hollow body of an electrically conductive material formed such that when an electric signal is applied to the hollow body at least in a certain pressure and voltage range, the geometric conditions for the ignition of a discharge in the interior of the hollow body are satisfied. The hollow body has at least one opening through which charge carriers can flow off into the environs of the arrangement in order to ignite and operate the plasma or to boost a plasma existing there. The arrangement has a mechanism which connects the hollow body electrically with the workpieces such that the hollow body is essentially at workpiece potential.

A process and an arrangement by means of which it is possible to generate a layer system for the protection against wear, for the protection against corrosion and for improving the sliding properties or the like, which has an adhesive layer for the arrangement on a substrate, a transition layer for the arrangement on the adhesive layer and a cover layer of an adamantine carbon, the adhesive layer including at least one element from the Group which contains the elements of the 4, 5and 6Subgroup and silicon, the transition layer comprising carbon and at least one element from the above-mentioned Group, and the cover layer consisting essentially adamantine carbon, the layer system having a hardness of at least 15 GPa, preferably at least 20 GPa, and an adhesion of at least 3 HF.

DLC coating system and process and apparatus for making coating system

The invention describes a device and a process that render possible the production of a layer system for wear protection, corrosion protection and improvement of the slipping properties and the like with an adhesion layer to be arranged on a substrate, a transition layer to be arranged on the adhesion layer and a covering layer of diamond-like carbon, wherein the adhesion layer comprises at least one element of the group of elements that contains the elements of the fourth, fifth and sixth subgroup of the periodic table and silicon, the transition layer comprises carbon and at least one element of the aforesaid groups and covering layer consists essentially of diamond-like carbon, the layer system having a hardness of at least 15 GPa, preferably at least 20 GPa, and an adhesion of at least 3 HF according to VDI 382l, Sheet The process used for the production of this layer system is such at the initial introduction of the substrate into a vacuum chamber and pumping to produce a vacuum of at least 10mbar, preferably 10mbar, is at first followed by the cleaning of the substrate surface to remove any adhering impurities and then by the plasma-supported deposition of the adhesion layer. Subsequently the transition layer is applied by the simultaneous deposition of the components of the adhesion layer and the deposition of carbon from the gaseous phase by means of plasma-CVD. The diamond-like carbon layer is then applied solely by means of plasma-supported deposition of carbon from the gaseous phase. During the process a biasing voltage is applied to the substrate, this voltage being pulsed in the medium-frequency range, while a superposed magnetic field stabilizes the plasma in the individual process steps. An appropriate device for carrying out the coating process therefore consists of a vacuum chamber () with a pumping system () for the production of a vacuum in the vacuum chamber, substrate holding devices () to receive the substrates to be coated, at least one gas supply unit () for dosing the supply of process gas, at least one vaporizer device () to make available coating material for deposition, an arc generation device () to ignite a low-voltage d.c. arc, a device () for the generation of a substrate biasing voltage and with at least one or several magnetic field generator devices () for the formation of a far magnetic field. The invention also describes a DLC-slipping layer system and a process for the production of such a system, which on its surface side is provided with an an additional slipping layer.

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Triesen, Liechtenstein

Hubert Eberle