What is Thin Film Deposition By Thermal Evaporation?

One of the common methods of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) is Thermal Evaporation. This is a form of Thin Film Deposition, which is a vacuum technology for applying coatingsEvaporation Vacuum Coating Machine Suppliers of pure materials to the surface of various objects. The coatings, also called films, are usually in the thickness range of angstroms to microns and can be a single material, or can be multiple materials in a layered structure.
The materials to be applied with Thermal Evaporation techniques can be pure atomic elements including both metals and non metals, or can be molecules such as oxides and nitrides. The object to be coated is referred to as the substrate, and can be any of a wide variety of things such as: semiconductor wafers, solar cells, optical components, or many other possibilities.

Thermal Evaporation involves heating a solid material inside a high vacuum chamber, taking it to a temperature which produces some vapor pressure. Inside the vacuum, even a relatively low vapor pressure is sufficient to raise a vapor cloud inside the chamber. This evaporated material now constitutes a vapor stream, which traverses the chamber and hits the substrate, sticking to it as a coating or film.
Since, in instances of Thermal Evaporation processes the material is heated to its melting point and is liquid, it is usually located in the bottom of the chamber, often in some sort of upright crucible. The vapor then rises above this bottom source, and the substrates are held inverted in appropriate fixtures at the top of the chamber. The surfaces intended to be coated are thus facing down toward the heated source material to receive their coating.
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