The influence on the plasma and the coating caused through a combination of steered arc and modified pulsed arc processes

A combination of steered arc process and modified pulsed arc process was investigated in order to determine the effects on the plasma and on the coating qualities during deposition. Titanium, titanium–aluminium and chromium were used as target materials. The work pressure was 1 Pa with nitrogen as work gas. The usage of a pulsed arc current instead of a continuous arc current leads to an accelerated spot movement during the pulse period. The pulse phase also causes the division of the formerly single spot into multiple spots. Those multiple spots move on average on the circular trace that can be observed also without pulsed arc currents. Therefore the spot traces and their velocity leave vary only locally while the pulse current is applied. Another trait of the process combination is the attenuation of the plasma focussing compared with the pure modified pulsed arc process. This weakening influences the film thickness uniformity.