To close out 2018, we exhibited at the Fall Materials Research Society conference. As we usually do during the show, we took time to attend technical talks. Knowing the course that research is taking helps us to best meet the needs of researchers. Besides, the discoveries themselves are fascinating to take in! We’re reviewing what we learned and building on that knowledge as we kick off 2019. They say it’s all in the delivery—and this is becoming truer of combinatorial deposition. The relative flux of the sputtered components is not the only determinant of the properties and performance of a combinatorial candidate material. Two of the talks we attended brought this point home:

In Part 3 of this blog series, we discussed designing deposition systems with linear substrate motion or continuous web coating. As promised, this blog will show the results of modeling of the plate coating example we defined previously.

In the previous blogs of this series, we highlighted that the properties of the film are central to the design of a deposition instrument, with film thickness and uniformity being critical parameters for performance. Throughput predictions help to determine and maximize the system ROI. Proper design can also identify and trim away unnecessary cost elements, reducing the “I” in ROI. In part 2, we examined design considerations for rotating substrate. This blog will look at coating methods for linear motion systems.