Patent ID: 6209481
Filing Date: 2001-04-03
Classification: C23C,Y10T

Abstract:
A system for coating a surface of an electro-conductive or non-electro-conductive substrate with an electro-conductive or non-electro-conductive material, comprising:a vacuum chamber;a vacuum pump configured to maintain a vacuum in the vacuum chamber; anda single ion source configured to sequentially implant and deposit ions with a smooth and continuous transition therebetween which implants first ions of the material into the surface of a substrate disposed within said vacuum chamber to form an implanted substrate layer, to deposit second ions of the material on the implanted substrate layer to form a seed layer, to implant third ions of the material into the seed layer to form an intermix layer, and to deposit fourth ions of the material on the intermix layer to form the coating on the substrate, wherein the single ion source includes a single cathode formed of the material in a solid state and is configured to implant and deposit the ions by bombarding the single cathode with ions of a different material in a gaseous state to thereby dislodge particles of the material from the cathode and selectively energize the dislodged particles for implantation or deposition.