Deployment of in-situ optical monitoring techniques for tailoring thin film properties for specific advanced industrial applications

The ISOTECH project was dictated by the demand of manufacturing companies of razor and industrial blades, bearings and seals and piezoelectric quartz oscillators for improved product and component performance via the use of thin film surface coatings. The coatings materials properties of concern here are hardness, friction, thermal and chemical stability, adhesion, fracture strength and wear resistance. Optimisation of these properties may be attained in the candidate coatings, which are single, graded, or multi-layered DLC & a-C- and/or TiNx-based thin film structures, through in-situ, (during film growth), monitoring and control of their stoichiometry, composition, microstructure and thickness. For the purpose of in-situ control, a low-cost, high-speed unit based on the Spectrometric Ellipsometry (SE) technique, is to be first developed in this project and further developed into a commercially available instrument of distinct competitive advantages. The deposition techniques to be used for the development and production of the surface coatings will be magnetron sputtering (MS) and its variation known as closed film unbalanced magnetron sputtering (CFUBMS). The latter will also be developed into a new line of superior industrial deposition systems equipped with the above in-situ monitoring low-cost high speed SE (LCHSSE) unit. Technology transfer of pertinent materials and process advances and deployment of the LCHSSE unit took place through pilot-line operations as per individual manufacturing and time-scale needs and all within a few months to 1.5 years after completion of the project. The consortium consists of three industrial manufacturers (BIC, NETCOM, SULZER), whose products may critically depend, for their performance and functionality, on thin film surface coatings of specific property combinations, a manufacturer of CFUBMS systems and coating-service provider (TEER), a leading optical instrumentation company committed to extending lab-scale high-cost instrumentation into the field of real-time processing (JOBIN YVON), a major University pioneering the application of SE as an in-situ monitoring processes and thin-film service provider (AUTh-LTFN) and a well-known research centre specialising in novel thin film characterization techniques (BAM). The ISOTECH project is structured in four Work Packages (WP). The main research objectives of the project per WP were: WP1: - The development of the Low-Cost High-Speed Spectroscopic Ellipsometer (LCHSSE) system. - Making required modifications on existing and new closed Field Unbalanced Magnetron Sputtering (CFUBMS) deposition system. - Selecting the candidate coating materials. - Developing a theoretical model crucial for the mechanical behaviour of coating/substrate system, (adhesion). - Preparation and supply of flat and "real" substrates coated by the candidate thin films. - Testing and evaluation of latter films. - Analytical characterisation of select specimens. - Deployment of the LCHSSE system - Technology transfer from AUTh to TEER of in-situ SE monitoring know-how and physical parameters for preparation of DLC coatings. - Technoeconomic assessment-Exploitation of LCHSSE and LCHSSE/CFUBMS. WP2 concerns itself with basically applying the new coating materials developed mainly in WP1, onto razor and industrial blades for the purpose of reducing stress corrosion and premature failure of the blades. WP3 is to: acquire an integrated coating system, including the second prototype LCHSSE system and implement the pertinent technology developed in WP1; and, determine the optimum TiNx stoichiometry of films developed in WP1 and apply them on quartz crystals for high-frequency applications in telecommunications electronics. WP4 is to implement the pertinent technology developed in WP1 onto bearings and seals for improved product performance and feasibility of in-situ/real-time SE on the specific application.