PVD Blog

Valentine’s Day: What Does It Have To Do with Sputtered Thin Films

PVD Products teamed up with Tin Model, LLC to explain the connection between magnetron sputtering processes and Valentine's Day. Thin-film materials deposited via sputtering processes can vary widely both in properties and in thickness distribution. This is partially because vapor plumes emanated from magnetron sputtering sources can take various shapes, depending on the design of the magnetron, the material, the state of erosion and other influencers.
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Case Study: Increasing Vacuum Coating Capacity for a Leading Optical Component Manufacturer

In Spring 2015, PVD started working with a customer who specialized in providing and manufacturing subsystems, process controls, and instruments for markets using thin film technology. In their search for a new vendor who could build a vacuum coater to their detailed specifications, the customer solicited ten companies. Out of those ten companies, PVD was selected for the project. Recently, we spoke with the customer about the process of working with PVD. They told us:
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Meet the Team: Larry Scipioni, Chief Technology Officer

Before joining the team at PVD Products, Larry Scipioni got to know the company as a customer. During that time, he took an interest in PVD’s large-scale, high-complexity work, which aligned with his graduate work in thin film deposition. "I'd love to work there," he thought.
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Six Factors that Affect the Cost of a Thin Film Deposition System

Our customers use our custom thin film deposition coating tools for a wide range of applications from thin film lithium Ion batteries to combinatorial materials development, high temperature superconductors, semiconductor, optical, and tribological materials, etc. Although we divide our coating technologies into four categories—sputtering, evaporation, pulsed laser deposition (PLD), and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)—the range of features and combinations that we offer create an unlimited number of possible coating system configurations. The complex interconnection and dependencies among features make it impossible to determine a system's cost from a general description. That said, at a very simplistic level, there are six factors that have a high impact on the cost of a deposition tool. In no specific order, these are:
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Growth of High Quality Double-Sided YBCO on MgO Substrates for Microwave Applications

A customer approached PVD Products to develop a production-oriented tool to deposit high-quality Y1Ba2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) thin films onto MgO substrates for microwave applications, specifically for microwave filters for cellular phone applications. Our team had to demonstrate our technology's capabilities that would produce the desired quality of the films. Films with a minimum quality as noted below had to be provided:
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PVD Products Fills Leadership Positions to Support Growing Customer Base

Wilmington, MA (Sept. 25, 2017) – Over the last eight months, PVD Products has experienced a period of exponential growth, leading to several new hires. The company has recently hired a Principal Engineer and Chief Technology Officer.
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Meet the Team: Bob Sumner, Materials Manager

PVD Products prides itself on its customer service—cultivating relationships with any type of person, whether that be an actual customer, supplier or industry colleague. There relationships are intended to go beyond the individual PVD Products contact to the company as a whole. We recently spoke with Bob Sumner, Materials Manager for PVD Products, who truly embodies this with an extensive history from the customer service, purchasing and manufacturing industry.
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Case Studies: Three Times Advanced Coating Experience Enabled Us to Upgrade Customers’ Existing Tools

At heart, we are a “scientist” company. Our team has a deep understanding of the underlying physics of material science, chemistry, optics, plasmas and electronics. That expertise is what allows us to develop our own components, such as our line of magnetrons, without waiting for the general coating industry to catch up with the latest science. That expertise also enables us to understand a customer’s needs at a fundamental scientific level so that we can develop individual solutions to address their technical challenges.
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Meet the Team: Adam Shepard, Applications Engineer

It makes us very proud to say that we are Adam's only employer after he had finished schooling 12 years ago. We've watched him grow from a grad student doing research to leading our team as an applications engineer. It's Adam's dedication to this team that has helped to create strong, trusting relationships with our customers. We spoke with Adam about his role in bringing challenging and exciting projects in a wide variety of applications to life.
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Top Factors to Consider When Working with Dangerous Coating Materials

If your laboratory or manufacturing site anticipates working with toxic or highly reactive species, then thorough planning is required prior to purchasing and installing a thin film deposition tool. This planning should happen well before completing the instrument design, as it is difficult and expensive to retroactively address safety issues.
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