Objective
Objectives and content
The EU market for hard, wear resistant coatings could
grow significantly if one shortcoming of the current
coatings technology could be overcome. This is the lack
of a cost effective, environmentally friendly deposition
process enabling the manufacture of high adherence hard
thin films at ambient temperature. The main technical
problems arising in designing such a process come from
the necessity to provide good adhesion on different
materials and to enable coating of a variety of
substrates whatever their electrical conductivity or
physical shape. All these criteria could be satisfied in
principle by combining the remarkable and widely
recognised potential of Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) thin
films with the potential of a new plasma deposition
technology using Uniformly Distributed Microwave
Multipolar (UDMM) plasma and substrate biasing by fast
electron flooding. However, this has not yet been
achieved at an industrial level.
The goal of this project is to stimulate advanced
European expertise in the field of DLC deposition and to
demonstrate the remarkable potential of the proposed
deposition technique to reduce the processing cost and to
improve the durability. performance, reliability and
functionality of a variety of industrial products.
The innovative aspects of the technology to be developed
are as follows:
The environmentally friendly DLC deposition process
will be independent of thermodynamic effects and so will
therefore be at ambient temperature, with a consequent
improvement in the thermal budget performance.
The DLC deposition process will use UDMM plasma
deposition combined with substrate biasing by fast
electron injection thus enabling deposition on a wide
variety of substrates whatever their electrical
conductivity or shape such as plastic optical elements,
germanium infra-red windows, and glass fibre
epoxyblaminates for electronic substrates, etc.
The plasma cleaning, seeding and deposition processing
steps will be integrated within a multistep in situ
operation. The corresponding manufacturing flexibility
represents the potential for the development of new
composite materials and reduced equipment and processing
costs.
Due to the UDMM plasma uniformity potentially
achievable over large surfaces and/or volumes the process
to be developed has a potential for an easy scale-up of
the equipment and an increase in the substrate
through-put.
The consortium is made up of 6 partners from 5 Member
States (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK). The
partnership is vertically integrated with expertise
contributed from three major European manufacturers
acting as end-users who will implement the new coating
technology in the corresponding industrial sectors. The
industrial research laboratories will focus on process
development as well as process control methodology and
evaluation of the coatings. After laboratory development
the coatings will be fabricated on a pre-industrial scale
machine designed by one of the industrial partners.
The DIAMCO Project cost of 3 MECU is small in comparison
to the current plasma processing equipment market of 2000
MECU, the plasma diagnostics market of 50 MECU and the
optical coatings market of 800 MECU. All four industrial
partners are strategically placed to exploit these market
opportunities.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences electromagnetism and electronics
- engineering and technology materials engineering composites
- natural sciences physical sciences plasma physics
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- engineering and technology materials engineering amorphous solids
You need to log in or register to use this function
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Data not available
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
67037 Strasbourg
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.