ABSTRACT
Physical vapour deposition (PVD) sources are important commercially because they can be used to deposit adherent, well-consolidated thin protective films in a well-controlled manner at “low” substrate temperatures. This chapter discusses the studies of coatings produced using a unique anodic-cathodic arc source. Arc sources are the most productive of all PVD sources, with the highest degree of ionization of the emitted flux, thereby giving them a possible commercial edge. Steered arcs use electromagnetic fields to constrain the trajectory of the arc on the cathode surface and can be transformed into fully controllable alloy sources. The chapter is principally concerned with the properties of thin coatings of TiN produced by a new random arc system. These have been studied by several techniques including X-ray diffraction and optical photometry.
