Challenging the limits on large area coating uniformity

Steven J. Nadel, Dr. Philip Greene, James Rietzel, Dr. Matthias List
Applied Materials

“Nanomanufacturing” has been declared one of the keys to future product innovations in a broad range of industries from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors. Generally, the term nanomanufacturing has been applied to the production of materials where control of a single dimension on the order of 100 nm or less is vital to the performance of the product. The everyday production of large area coatings for improved energy performance of architectural and automotive glazings by magnetron sputtering is rarely considered to be part of nanomanufacturing, let alone on the cutting edge of this technology.

This paper will demonstrate how the development of more complex multilayer energy control coatings has gone hand in hand with the development of capabilities to control deposition uniformity on 10-20 m2 substrates to nanomanufacturing tolerances that express the limits of today’s technologies. The development from simple solar control and single silver layer low-emissivity coatings, through double, and in the last year, triple silver layer low-E, has come with ability to control deposition uniformity to nanometer precision over large areas...

Full Text Article [443 KB]

The Authors

Mr. Steve Nadel Chief Technologist Applied Materials Steve Nadel has been involved in R&d for coated glass applications for 25 years. Read more