Optical Thin Film Deposition Technology History
- Thermal evaporation
The optical thin film deposition technology is developed about 200 years.
Optical Thin Film Development History: (Reference and Courtesy: Society of Vacuum Coaters)
The blue lines relate to Thermal Evaporation Deposition Technology and Optical Thin Film. The brown lines relate to Sputtering Deposition Technology. We only list part of sputtering development, because this method is not ETAFILM's type. Only few progress of CVD (Chemical vapor desposition) technology in early stage will be described here if related to main progress of Optical Thin Film Deposition.
In morden optical thin film deposition, vacumm technology is also a keyrole. It's progress is in green lines.
1817, Fraunhofe (German) put glass into sulfuric acid in an experiment. He occasionally found a optical thin film layer gernerated on the surface of glass and can reduce the reflection of glass (Anti-Reflection, AR).
1835, someone use similar chemical method to creat a siliver mirror layer. This is the begining of coating..industrial.production.
1839, Hare of University of Pennsylvania was one of the first to experiment the electrical energy. He...demostrated aqueous.electrolysis with the mercury cathod, arc welding, consumable arc electrode...melting, all of which were induced to.commerical practice some decades later by others.
1850, Leybold founded.
1852, W.R. Grove was one who first to study what
came to
be known "sputtering" (sputter deposition). Grove
sputtered from a tip of wire held close to a.
highly
polished siliver surface when it was the.annode
of
a circuit. The deposite.was a ring
1858, Julius Plucker noted a formation of platinum
film inside a discharge tube, creating a "beautiful
metallic Mirror" .
1885, Germany Schott opened first optical glass plant.
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Grove's sputtering apparatus
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1877, Wright developed Sputter deposition technology to form mirrors .(DC Sputtering Deposition)
1887, Nahrwold & Kundt deposited a Pt (evapor sublimation) film in a vacuum environment. It was the first time trying to make a thin film in vacuum environment. But until 1930, the vacuum is seldomly to be used since the vacuum is.hard to creat.
1892, H.D. Toylor (British, he developed astigmatism-corrected triple-objective lens combination to reduce.astigmatism problem ) found if you burn a telescope object lens and after efflorescence. The lens will turn.into purple color on.surface and transmit more light compared to normal ones. This is the beginning of thermal.evaporation method to coat a optical thin film layer on glass.
1894, Edison's patent filed for arc deposition and thermal evaporation from solid surface. "electro vacuous deposition" for.arc deposition.
1897, Wiener developed a interference method to measure the thickness of thin film.
1898, Thompson discovered the electron.
1905, Kaufman & Gaede used electric motor to drive vacuum pump.
von Bolton documented the use of consumable arc re-melting tantalum in vacuum.
1906, de Forest Invented a triode vacuum tube.
1907, von Pirani patented vacuum re-melting refractory materials using focused cathode ray (electron) form a grow.discharge.
1910, General use of oil-sealed rotary vane mechanical pump.
1913, Equilibrium vapor pressure Study (Langmuir, Knudsen ,Knacke)Mercury vapor diffusion pump (Langmuir).
........
1917, Sputter deposited thin-film resistors on glass rods.
1920, Sputtering theory proposed by Guntherschulzer.
Langmuir probe developed.
1924, Stokes invented rotary piston vacuum pump.
1926, Burch used oil in diffusion pump. |
Rotary Pump
|
1928, Ritschl used a filament target and thermal evaporation method to deposite a thin film.
1930, Pfund discuss the Intrared filter and nanomaterial in vapor evaporation deposition.
1933, Strong used a filament aluminum target and thermal evaporation method to deposite thin film.
O’Brian & Skinner used an Indirect Electron-beam evaporation to substitute traditional thermal vaporation. Plasma activation of reactive gas during evaporation (Heitman; Berraz)
1934, Lurz & Whiley developed sputter roll coating of gold onto glassine.
Bauer & Strong developed plasma cleaning of glass for film deposition.
1935, Strong sucessfully to make a aluminum metallization of 100" Palomar telescope mirror.
1936, A.Smakula (Zess) try to veaporare a low refractive index material (fluoride) layer on glass in a vaccum environment. And sucessful make anti-reflection effect (single layer AR). This is the start of vaccum used in optical thin film deposition.
1937, Berghaus filed a patent for evaporation onto an ion
bombarded surface. .Metal oil diffusion pump (Malter).
1938, Liquid air cold traps on oil diffusion pumps (late 1930s).
Vacuum freeze drying [Stokes]
1939, Cartwright & Turner made a Two-layer AR coating.
1940, M. Ruhle first used Electon Beam Gun Evaporation to make
a thin film.
1942, Geffcken made a triple-layer AR coating. |
Morden Mass Spectometer leak detector
|
1943, Mass spectrometer leak detector .
1945, Banning made a multilayer optical filters.
1946, Friedman & Birks developed film thickness measurement by X-ray adsorption.
Vacuum Electronic Equipment Company (VEECO) founded.
Balzers founded.
1947, Strong made an aluminizing of 200" Palomar telescope mirror.
1948, OCLI, Optical Coating Laboratory Inc., was founded in USA.
Dufour developed film thickness control by optical transmission.
Harris & Siegel developed flash evaporation by dropped particles.
Lander & Germer developed Industrial modern CVD processing and open a new CVD processing era.
ECR plasmas formed.
1950's E-gun evaporation became mainstream in thermal evaporation.
1951, Study on decorative metallizing of plastic.
Magnetically focused electron beam evaporation source developed.
1953, Auwarter; Brinsmaid filed a patent "Reactive evaporation" to form
a optical thin film. American Vacuum Society [AVS] founded .
1954, Pierce-type electron gun with long focus was invonated by Pierce.
1955, Schröder filed US patent for Infrared transmitting mirror.
Wehner proposed RF Sputtering to form a dielectrics optical thin film.
Electron beam evaporation for optical thin film deposition
became mature (Ruhle 1940) |
John R. Pierce
( Adapted "Vintage Electrics" Volume #3 issue #1 - 1991) |
1958, NASA founded.
First Pfeiffer turbomolecular pump.
1960's, NASA developed Ion Sources for vacuum space propulsion.
1960, Quartz crystal oscillator film thickness monitor.
1962, Arc vapor depositon of carben and metals eveloped.
Leybold Vacuum Products was founded in USA.
Hoeing discussed vapor pressure of elements.
1963, Mattox filed patent for Ion Plating process.(originally for
metal hardness and decorative.)
1965, Bias sputter deposition. Pulse Laser Deposition. (PLD)
1966, Vacuum Metallurgical Co. founded (ULVAC)
The terms " Physical Vapor Deposition" (PVD) and
"Chemical Vapor Deposition" (CVD) were used .in the book of "Vapor Deposition" (Powell, Oxley & Blocker)
1967, Triode sputter deposition.
1968, Hanks filed patent for 270° Electron Beam evaporator.
1969, Magnetron sputtering from inside hemispherical section.
1970's Golden age for vacuum thin film deposition industrialization |
270° E-Beam
|
1970, Hollow cathode electron source for evaporation.
High energy neutrals from ions reflected from cathodes.
OCLI developed high rate multilayer optical coater.
Camera producers used mulilayer coating AR on lens and demostrated in Germany photokina-world.
Hollow cathode E-Gun coater produced in Japan.
1971, Ion bombardment techniques used in deposited films within.large amount gas.
Cathodic random arc vaporization source.(Snaper, sablev)
1972, Sputter deposition using ion gun in a vacuum chamber.
Ion Cluster Beam Deposition by Tagaki.
1974, Studies on compressive stress in ion bombarded films (Bland, Kominiak & Mattox; Hoffman & Thornton).Planar magnetron patent applied by Chapin.
1975, Penfold & Thornton applied for "post cathode magnetron sputtering" patent.
Murayama developed Reactive Ion Plating.
Schiller innovated "Alternating Ion Plating".
1976, Weissmantel innovated Ion gun providing concurrent bombardment to deposite a thin film.
1980's, early of decade, PVD hard coatings on tools. to improve hardness.
1980, Decorative and functional coating on hardware.
1981, Lybold system developed sputter ion plating for decorative coating
1982, Commercial gas evaporation of ultrafine particles [ULVAC] .
1983, Compact discs- CDs introduced by Phillips & Sony companies. |
Decorative Coating
|
1984, General Electric [GE] filed a patent on vacuum evaporated multilayer
polymer films.
1986, Windows and Sawides innovated unbalanced magnetron sputtering.
1987, Kaufman & Robinson developed End-Hall gridless ion source.
Commercial cluster tool (Applied Materials)
1989, Courtaulds Performance Films founded. (CPF films)
Modern era, further discussion will focus on Thermal Evaporation Optical Thin Film Deposition Technology.
See next web page. |
