ABSTRACT
From the viewpoint of industrial scale application of LCVD and LCVT, probably the most important factor is the continuity of processing, namely, whether the processing can be operated in a continuous mode or should be done in batch mode. The continuous mode contains two modes of operation, i.e., operation of glow discharge and handling of substrate. This distinction of two modes of operation could be seen in an example of coating or treating a long web of substrate, such as film, cloth, or wire. The true continuous processing can be accomplished by feeding substrate from outside of a vacuum reactor and retrieving the proceed product outside of the reactor, i.e., ‘‘air-to-air’’ operation. This can be done by feeding substrate through a narrow opening and applying stepwise pumping through small-volume segments, and the reverse steps on the other end of the reactor. Another way is by placing a roll of film in a vacuum reactor, followed by the feeding and retrieving of substrate in vacuum, i.e., ‘‘vacuum-to-vacuum’’ operation. This is a batch process, but LCVD or LCVT could be run in a steady state of luminous gas phase.
