A technique for producing thin films of materials. Atoms of a material are evolved from a heated source in the vacuum chamber, and allowed to strike the surface of the substrate to be coated. The technique is used to provide the aluminium coating on compact disks; and printed circuit boards are made by depositing a metal film through a mask.
Vacuum deposition is a process used to create a thin layer of a substance (a coating) on a solid object (the substrate). The substrate is placed into a vacuum chamber and a small amount of the coating material is vaporized into the chamber.
Vacuum deposition is very commonly used in the fabrication of optics. Everyday objects that are created by vacuum deposition include mirrors, which are most frequently made of a glass substrate with aluminum or silver vacuum-deposited onto it;
Common vacuum deposition techniques include sputtering, in which the vapor is created by directing an electron beam at a target made of the material to be deposited; and ion implantation, in which ions of the coating material are accelerated directly to land on (and possibly implant within) the surface of the substrate.
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