Physical vapor deposition, also known as PVD, is a technique to coat an object with a thin film. The technique involves vaporizing the material at hand and then placing it into a low-pressure environment. The condensation of the vapors takes place upon the object automatically coating it with a thin film of the substance. There are two main advantages of using the technique condensateurs film of physical vapor deposition. Firstly, the coating is even and takes place over the entire object without certain areas receiving a denser coating than others. The other advantage is that the method is clean and does not require high maintenance. The best methods of physical vapor deposition are used with active gases like, methane, nitrogen, and oxygen with plasma bombarding.

There are different methods for using the plasma and creating the gases required. However, the main methods use manipulation of ions, alloying with the help of lasers, plate-making and spluttering. Physical vapor deposition and thin film deposition methods are clean and the coating is deposited over the entire object at the same time rather than going for localized regions. All of these processes combine a method for deposition of the material, combination with an active gas like oxygen, nitrogen or methane and plasma bombardment of the substrate to make a hard coating. The methods in PVD differ in the means for producing the metal gas and the way plasma is created. The main PVD methods are ion manipulation, laser surface alloying, plating and spluttering.

PVD has many classes of vacuum coating processes in which the material is physically removed from a source of sputtering or evaporation and then transported through vacuum by the energy of the particles of the vapor. It is then condensed as a film on the surfaces of appropriately placed substrates. In case of chemical compounds, they are deposited by adding a reactive gas which contains desired reactants that react with metal from the PVD source or by using a similar source material.

Over the last few years, many PVD processes have evolved. They are recognized by many names. Most of them are named after the physical gas source like radio frequency sputtering, diode or triode sputtering, electron beam evaporation, planar or cylindrical magnetron sputtering, arc evaporation and activated reactive evaporation.

Despite of all the names they are given, they can broadly be categorized under three phases namely emission from a source, condensation on substrates to be coated and transport in vacuum.

Usually, PVD processes have been relatively costly due to expensive vacuum equipment, slow deposition rates and throughput limitations. Recently, the use of PVD methods have increased a lot due to decreased costs and increased demand for high performance materials and coatings.

PVD is a good coating process for hard coatings. Although it requires more parts preparation, greater processing time, more expensive equipment and more system maintenance as compared to other processes, it is all worth it when it comes to the end product. At times, it is the only method that is capable of depositing a coating of the desired material. When all the factors are considered, the overall cost of PVD can be quite less than other coating processes.

The factors that you need to keep in mind before going for a particular PVD process are cleaning and preparation, temperature, end result, fixturing, substrate properties and coating rates. When there are alternate methods of getting the end result are available, then the total costs must be compared. The total cost majorly includes operating environment cost and the equipment cost.

PVD can also be conducted through a vacuum method. In this case, the vapors are physically channeled through a vacuum environment from the main point of evaporation or sputtering. This happens automatically as the vapors are directed into the right channel to eventually condense on the object that is to be coated with the fine film. Gases could be used for creating with chemical reactions with compounds to make sure a more efficient process of film-coating.

Various techniques of PVD have developed across the world. The techniques are identified according to the source of the gas used for sputtering. Some companies condensateurs film prefer sputtering with the cylindrical-magnetron method, while others might go for the diode method. Other types of sputtering could be triode-based, electron beam method, planar method, etc.

However, all the techniques could be grouped into three broad categories depending upon the source of emission, condensation method, and vacuum transmission.The main cost of the PVD process depends upon the equipment used for the transport of the vapors through the vacuum environment. Expenses also depend upon the rate of deposition which is slow and the throughput that could be limited. Advanced techniques have brought down the cost of the PVD processes. This has helped increase the use of PVD worldwide. There is quite a high demand for film-coating.

One of the most helpful uses of PVD is in industries where hard coatings are required. Though, the process of hard coatings requires more time taken in processing, more costly equipment and greater maintenance of the entire process, the end results make it all worth it. The overall input in terms of costs and labor in the PVD process is still less than that required in other processes. In fact, often, PVD is the only process suited for ensuring hard coating of good quality..