page_title: Cathodic arc deposition
section_title: Equipment design
hierarchical_section_title: Cathodic arc deposition / Equipment design
caption_attribution_description: English: Cathodic arc source, Sablev type
context_page_description: Cathodic arc deposition or Arc-PVD is a physical vapor deposition technique in which an electric arc is used to vaporize material from a cathode target. The vaporized material then condenses on a substrate, forming a thin film. The technique can be used to deposit metallic, ceramic, and composite films.
context_section_description: Sablev type Cathodic arc source, which is the most widely used in the West, consists of a short cylindrical shape electrical conductive target at cathode with one open end. This target has an electrically-floating metal ring surrounded working as an arc confinement ring (Strel'nitskij shield). The anode for the system can be either the vacuum chamber wall or a discrete anode. Arc spots are generated by mechanical trigger (or igniter) striking on open end of the target making a temporarily short circuit between the cathode and anode. After the arc spots being generated they can be steered by magnetic field or move randomly in absence of magnetic field.
  The plasma beam from Cathodic Arc source contains some larger clusters of atoms or molecules (so called macro-particles), which prevent it from being useful for some applications without some kind of filtering.
  There are many designs for macro-particle filters and the most studied design is based on the work by I. I. Aksenov et al. in 70's. It consists of a quarter-torus duct bent at 90 degrees from the arc source and the plasma is guided out of the duct by principle of plasma optics.
  There are also other interesting designs such as a design which incorporates a straight duct filter built-in with truncated cone shape cathode as reported by D. A. Karpov in the 90's. This design became quite popular among both the thin hard-film coaters and researchers in Russia and former USSR countries until now.
  Cathodic arc source can be made into the long tubular shape (extended-arc) or long rectangular shape but both designs are less popular.
caption: Sablev type Cathodic arc source with magnet to steer the movement of arc spot
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