VACUUM ARC DEPOSITION OF DECORATIVE AND PROTECTIVE COATINGS ON THE LARGE-AREA GLASS AND STEEL SUBSTRATES

An industrial installation for vacuum arc deposition is presented. Its potential in the field of decorative coatings for large area glass and steel sheets is demonstrated. Particularly it is possible to deposit patterned coatings through a textile polymeric mask. TiN, TiO 2 and mutilayer TiN/TiO 2 coatings have been characterized. The depth profiling was made with the aid of Auger electron spectroscopy. The corrosion resistance of TiN coatings is higher than the corrosion resistance of TiO 2 . The corrosion resistance of vacuum arc deposited TiN coatings on glass proves to be higher than that of TiN coatings produced by direct current reactive sputtering and plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition. Patterned TiN coatings do not show any signs of an accelerated corrosion along the border between the coated and uncoated glass.