PVD Vacuum Coating Process

BryCoat PVD hard coatings featuring Titanium Nitride (TiN) and Chromium Nitride (CrN) are produced by BryCoat’s proprietary vacuum deposition technologies utilizing cathodic arc coating technology. BryCoat’s trade secret procedures produce the highest adhesion, highest density and toughest coatings available.

Process Description

  • BryCoat uses an advanced PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) process in a vacuum chamber to deposit thin film hard coatings
  • Substrate parts are inspected upon arrival.
  • Parts are cleaned in a proprietary multi-stage cleaning process to remove soils, oils, fingerprints and produce an oxide free surface.
  • After cleaning, the substrates are mounted onto fixtures for coating.
  • The fixtured parts are loaded into the coating chamber.
  • The air in the chamber is pumped out, leaving a high vacuum environment.
  • Substrate parts are pre-heated to process temperature
  • Substrates are ion-cleaned to remove the final atomic contaminants from the surface.
  • A flow of ionized nitrogen and argon is introduced into the chamber.
  • Titanium is flash evaporated and ionized by a vacuum arc. This generates a plasma within the chamber of ionized atomic nitrogen, argon and titanium.
  • A voltage is applied to the substrates to accelerate the ions in the plasma cloud to the surface of the parts.
  • The titanium and nitrogen combine on the surface of the substrate, forming a dense, hard coating of TiN. The combination of ionization, kinetic energy of the accelerated atoms, and thermal energy in the chamber provide enough energy to form the hard TiN film.
  • The coating bonds to the surface of the substrate, and even penetrates the surface slightly, to give an outstanding level of adhesion.
  • The coating cycle lasts several hours. All process variables are carefully controlled to insure a high quality coating.
  • Each coating batch is tested for quality, thickness, and uniformity.
  • Each part is inspected for coverage

About PVD Coatings

  • Thin film coatings (few microns)
  • Ultra-hard ceramic materials
  • Inert Surfaces
  • Moderate Temperature process
  • Not a pure line-of-sight process
  • Extreme adhesion from BryCoat PVD process
  • Not just mechanical adhesion as in plating
  • Dense, fine grained coatings
  • High energy Cathodic Arc process
  • Extremely high ionization rate
  • Ion acceleration to substrate provides reaction energy
  • Environmentally friendly alternative to plating technology.