A method to produce a hard coating onto a substrate, wherein the hard coating comprises a hydrogen-free amorphous carbon coating, wherein the amorphous carbon coating is deposited onto the substrate using a cathodic arc discharge deposition technique, wherein a bias voltage is applied to the substrate with an absolute value that is greater than 0 V, preferably greater than 10 V and less than 1000 V, and wherein the absolute value of the bias voltage is increased during the coating process to obtain a first structure and a second structure and a gradient between the first and the second structure along the coating thickness, wherein the first and the second structure comprise sp2 and sp3 carbon bonds but differ in their relative concentration, wherein at least one coating pause is applied during the coating process in order to reduce the substrate temperature during the coating pause.

A method is provided for decreasing a wear rate of a brake stack or a heat sink wear rate and increasing a brake life of the brake stack or the heat sink. The method includes coating a wear surface of a brake disk with at least one of an engineered ceramic material or ceramic solution, thereby forming a coated brake disk and installing the coated brake disk in a multi-disk brake system.

Electrochromic devices are fabricated using a particle removal operation that reduces the occurrence of electronically conducting layers and/or electrochromically active layers from contacting layers of the opposite polarity and creating a short circuit in regions where defects form. In some embodiments, the particle removal operation is not a lithiation operation. In some embodiments, the particle removal operation is performed at an intermediate stage during the deposition of either an electrochromic layer or a counter electrode layer.

A manufacturing method includes providing a substrate with an outer surface and at least one interior space, selectively deposited a coating on a portion of the substrate to form a selectively deposited coating having one or more grooves formed therein. The method further includes processing at least a portion of the surface of the selectively deposited coating to plastically deform the selectively deposited coating in the vicinity of the top of a respective groove. An additional coating is applied over at least a portion of the surface of the selectively deposited coating. A component is disclosed and includes a substrate, a selectively deposited coating disposed on at least a portion of the substrate, and defining one or more grooves therein, and an additional coating disposed over the selectively deposited coating. The substrate, the selectively deposited coating and the additional coating defining one or more channels for cooling the component.

Electrochromic devices are fabricated using a particle removal operation that reduces the occurrence of electronically conducting layers and/or electrochromically active layers from contacting layers of the opposite polarity and creating a short circuit in regions where defects form. In some embodiments, the particle removal operation is not a lithiation operation. In some embodiments, the particle removal operation is performed at an intermediate stage during the deposition of either an electrochromic layer or a counter electrode layer.

The present disclosure provides a copper-coated aluminum wire material including an aluminum wire material and a copper thin film coating the aluminum wire material that a space factor of the thin copper film is in the range of 0.2% to 4%.

A sealing lock for a vacuum deposition facility of a coating on a running metal strip following a running path, including walls and at least three pairs of rolls, inside the walls, wherein each pair of rolls of the at least three pairs of rolls includes a roll with a metal surface and a roll with an elastomer surface layer, having a thickness from 3 to 30 mm, forming a gap from 1 to 11 mm, the rolls with an elastomer surface layer of two successive pairs of rolls are on opposite sides of the running path.

A glass optical component with embedded mask may be formed from multiple, discrete glass member components using a non-adhesive bonding process. A black mask may be created at a surface of a first member component using a deposition or a printing-and-sintering process. A backfill coating may then be applied to and then polished at the surface of the first member component. Next, the first member component may be bonded with a second member component, with the non-adhesive bonding process, at the surface of the first member component to form the optical component with the black mask embedded between the first and second member components. In addition, the glass optical component forming process may be implemented on a glass wafer level to make multiple glass optical components at a same time.

An unchamfered piston ring that is pre-treated by grit blasting to a defined roughness, followed by PVD coating with a metal nitride to a thickness of at least 10 m, leaving peaks and valleys in the coated piston ring. The coated piston ring is then lapped to remove the peaks without penetrating the coating, so that valleys and plateaus remain in the coated surface. The resulting piston ring exhibits superior coating retention due to the increased surface area created by the grit blasting, and yet also superior performance, as the cavities remaining increase the porosity of the coating and thus enhance the lubrication of the ring.

A coated cutting tool and a process for the production thereof is provided. The coated cutting tool consists of a substrate body of WCCo based cemented carbide and a coating, the coating including a first (Ti,Al)N multilayer, a first gamma-aluminium oxide layer, and a set of alternating second (Ti,Al)N multilayers and second gamma-aluminium oxide layers.