Patent ID: 8034419

Claim:
A method of forming a barrier coating, the method comprising: providing a device having a surface; and depositing on said surface a graded-composition barrier coating comprising: a first zone defined by a first thickness comprising a first material and a second material wherein a composition of said first zone varies substantially continuously across said first thickness; and a second zone defined by a second thickness which is substantially free of any of said first material; and, wherein said coating is deposited using a method selected from the group consisting of: sputtering, reactive sputtering, evaporation, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, reactive ion etching plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition, expanding thermal plasma chemical-vapor deposition, electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition, inductively-coupled plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition, and combinations thereof.