Design aspects of rotating cylindrical magnetron cathode: R C-Magnetron applicability for developing tantalum based hard coatings

Coating uniform thin films on inner surfaces of tubular objects for strategic and commercial applications like barrels is a challenge. Among the several techniques being employed presently for the large area coatings and coatings on tubular objects, cylindrical magnetron cathodes are being used widely. Though there are several designs presently in use, large scope exists for improvements in the design of cylindrical magnetron cathodes. Hence in the present book, design aspects of cylindrical magnetron cathodes useful for coating inner or outer surfaces of planar or tubular surfaces were discussed and arrived at improved (performance) R C-Magnetron cathode geometry. As the tantalum and tantalum based nitride coatings have wide applications in biological, electrical, surface engineering, etc. the same were developed using R C-Magnetron cathodes with different deposition parameters and results pertaining to arriving at the best possible deposition parameters for Ta based hard coatings were presented.

Profession: Scientist, Centre for Engineered Coatings, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad, India.Email: kvalleti@gmail.com or krishna@arci.res.inProf. A Subrahmanyam, Dept. of Physics, IIT Madras, INDIA