With more than 60 years of experience in electron beam processes and over 45 years of know-how in vacuum coating, VON ARDENNE is one of the leading providers of equipment and technologies in PVD thin-film technology and vacuum process technology.
VON ARDENNE is able to turn product property requirements into efficient and competitive coating solutions, which is an essential precondition for individual machine concepts.
VON ARDENNE is an innovative company conducting its own research and development. In order to do that in an international environment, we have to deal thoroughly with intellectual property. That includes both the intellectual property rights of third parties and our own intellectual property such as innovations, creative ideas and inventions.
Our strategy requires a targeted research of current intellectual property rights as well as consistent protection of our own technological achievements.
Our company can rely on more than 700 national and international patent applications, patents and utility models in all relevant fields of technology.
VON ARDENNE coating systems and components are applied in different industries for various applications. The substrates that are coated with our equipment are just as diverse as the applications. This diversity is characterized by
We have profound experience with the handling of all these different substrates and with depositing functional layers on them.
This know-how is incorporated continuously into our innovations and is indispensable for finding new coating and handling solutions for such sophisticated substrates as flexible glass.
VON ARDENNE supports customers from their first idea to the laboratory and pilot production stage and finally to scaling the technology up for large-scale production.
HEATING, GLOW DISCHARGE & SPUTTER ETCHING
Most PVD-coating processes need an adequate pre-treatment to achieve good adhesion and excellent layer properties. Depending on the substrate layer combination, various pre-treatment processes can be used with VON ARDENNE equipment.
Controlled heating is used to remove water and other volatile surface contaminations from substrates as glass, web or metal strip. The heating is carried out by various types of radiation heaters according to their heating power and radiation wavelength range. For very high heating powers on conductive substrates, electron beam heating is applied.
If substrates are heat sensitive, low energy ion bombardment generated by a glow discharge in argon or/and reactive gases is used to avoid high substrate temperatures.
Sputter etching is suitable for removing solid contaminants and also substrate material by bombarding with atoms and ions at high energy (~100 eV). Depending on the application, magnetron sputter etchers, inverse high-frequency etchers or linear ion sources (LION) are used.
HOW IT WORKS AND WHAT WE OFFER
With magnetron sputtering, a magnetic field-enhanced plasma discharge is generated in a medium vacuum and a defined gas atmosphere. The coating material, which is called target, is sputtered by bombarding it with positive gas ions. The particles of the coating material condense on the substrate as a continuous thin film. Magnetron sputter sources enable the highly precise deposition of complex layer systems at a high uniformity and on large areas.
The key component for magnetron sputtering is the magnetron. VON ARDENNE manufactures all key components for its equipment in-house.
VON ARDENNE magnetrons are available for a wide range of applications. Thanks to many years of experience gained from designing and installing advanced sputtering equipment, we can offer a complete portfolio of solutions from AC to DC processes, planar to rotatable applications and even magnetrons with integrated turbopumps.
All magnet bars and magnet systems are similar in mechanical design and therefore interchangeable. They offer the following benefits:
VON ARDENNE offers different anode design solutions to meet the requirements of a wide range of industries and applications.
There are basic solutions such as using the dark shield as anode for our wide single magnetrons, or more sophisticated designs such as the dual anode system (DAS) for rotatable magnetrons.
Our latest developments:
FUNCTION & EXPERIENCE
The electron beam is a powerful tool for heat treatment processes and for melting and evaporating metals and alloys.
The coating process is started by generating a deflectable beam in vacuum from the electron beam gun. It is focused on the surface of the material to be evaporated, which is placed in a crucible. In the case of evaporation, the high power impact of the electron beam on the coating material generates a stream of atoms with a high deposition rate.
This vapor stream settles on the coating surface and forms a thin functional layer on it. During that process, the substrate can be moved through the vapor stream.
Deposition rates can be increased 10 to 100 times with a single electron beam evaporation process compared to magnetron sputtering.
VON ARDENNE develops and manufactures electron beam systems which are used for melting, refining, evaporation or heat treatment.
The first electron beam gun was developed in 1960 at the Manfred von Ardenne Research Institute. Our more than 60 years of experience are reflected in over 400 electron beam systems installed worldwide.
Our current EH150V, EH300V and EH800V electron beam guns are the most powerful in the world. We work on the continuous improvement of our key components at our development center for electron beam technologies. This is where we produce and test our high-quality electron beam guns.
APPLICATIONS
PECVD & Thermal Evaporation
Apart from the technologies described above, VON ARDENNE offers two more options with which our machines can be equipped to deposit homogeneous and reliable functional layers: PECVD and thermal evaporation.
For applications requiring PECVD (plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition), the following deposition sources are used:
For thermal evaporation, these two methods are used:
With PEVCD and thermal evaporation, the following layers and layer functions can be created:
In both cases, Hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) or Tetramethyldisiloxane (TMDSO) act as precursors.
Tempering processes are often the means of choice in thin-film technology to improve electrical or optical properties. However, conventional tempering processes are time-consuming and energy-intensive.
Furthermore, they cause thermo-mechanical stress within the substrate, which can lead to defects. They also require long heating processes.
In thin-film technology, these cause diffusion processes and make the use of additional barrier layers necessary. Because of all that, the manufacturing process is more complex and more expensive.
Flash lamp annealing, on the other hand, offers crucial advantages: It causes no or only minor thermo-mechanical stress within the substrate and subdues diffusion processes. Therefore, there is no need for additional barrier layers.
We offer our partners our technology expertise in flash lamp annealing in order to develop further fields of applications with them.
PROMISING PROCESS APPROACHES
CONDUCTIVE LAYERS like metals, metal pastes, metal oxides, semiconductors for:
SOL GEL COATINGS with anti-reflective, anti-corrosion and scratch resistance properties for:
REFLECTIVE AND DECORATIVE LAYERS like paints, enamels, lacquers and laminates for:
Quality assurance, quality monitoring for coatings on glass
Optical characterisation and sheet resistance measurement
Enhance your quality by easier quality control (QC)
Enhance your quality by better quality assurance (QA)
Make it your own
VON ARDENNE has more than 45 years of experience in vacuum deposition and outstanding expertise in multiscale simulation to
We accelerate product development and upgrades by reducing the engineering effort with cutting-edge modelling and simulation for
Low pressure gas flow for best gas distributions
DSMC – DIRECT SIMULATION MONTE CARLO
The simulation of low-pressure gas distributions in process chambers requires special numerical methods and a highly computational effort. The DSMC method is applied already in the construction and design phase at VON ARDENNE in order to achieve the best gas distributions.
Plasma process and magnetic field for excellent film growth
PICMC – PARTICLE IN CELL METHOD
Cutting-edge thin-film technology is characterized by film homogeneity, high target utilization, film-optimized process design and other technological requirements. At VON ARDENNE, plasma and magnetic field simulations are used to analyze and improve the decisive physical process responsible for the film growth.
Optical simulation for outstanding film properties
RAY TRACING AND THIN FILM PROPERTIES
Optical simulations are widely used to achieve the most efficient design for VON ARDENNE equipment with flash-lamp based annealing and patterning technology. Furthermore, the parameters of thin films are optimized using simulation methods so that the overall optical properties meet the requirements.
Finite Element Simulations for best coating results
MECHANICAL, THERMAL, CFD, MULTI-PHYSICS
FE simulations for the analysis and optimization of different physical processes in combination with many years of experience are essential prerequisites for VON ARDENNE coating systems to meet the high quality requirements of our customers.
PURPOSE
Supporting customers, research and development by
Complete electron beam gun testing equipment
We have testing equipment for:
Metal strip coating system
EB-PVD sample coater
Hardware testing of and process development for
We have various coating systems for testing and sampling:
VIOLA
ELISA
ADELE
VON ARDENNE is part of a large network of scientific institutions. Therefore, we are able to use certain sample coating facilities and analysis methods provided by our partners.
Apart from that, we have further laboratory systems for technology and application development, for instance for flash lamp annealing and organic evaporation.
We are open for new ideas! Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are looking for a coating technology to implement a new application.
Our customers can rely on our experience and our expertise, which is characterized below.
WE OFFER:
