Sputtered coatings for metal finishing

Summary

High rate sputtering has been found to be a versatile coating process for improving both the appearance and performance of metal surfaces.

In particular, layers of refractory materials have been used to provide hard wear resistant surfaces on a wide range of metal parts.

Synthetic nitride coatings produced by sputtering from pure elemental targets in partial nitrogen atmospheres have been successfully deposited on to base alloys of many types.

The bright metallic colours of some of these nitrides produce extremely attractive surface finishes.