A substrate is provided with an abrasion resistance antireflection coating. The coated substrate includes a multilayer antireflection coating on at least one side. The coating has layers with different refractive indices, wherein higher refractive index layers alternate with lower refractive index layers. The layers having a lower refractive index are formed of silicon oxide with a proportion of aluminum, with a ratio of the amounts of aluminum to silicon is greater than 0.05, preferably greater than 0.08, but with the amount of silicon predominant relative to the amount of aluminum. The layers having a higher refractive index include a silicide, an oxide, or a nitride.

A method is for depositing a dielectric material on to a substrate in a chamber by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering with a pulsed DC magnetron device which produces one or more primary magnetic fields. In the method, a sputtering material is sputtered from a target, wherein the target and the substrate are separated by a gap in the range 2.5 to 10 cm and a secondary magnetic field is produced within the chamber which causes a plasma produced by the pulsed DC magnetron device to expand towards one or more walls of the chamber.

The invention relates to a HiPIMS method by means of which homogeneous layers can be deposited over the height of a coating chamber. Two partial cathodes are used for said purpose. According to the invention, the length of the individual power pulse intervals applied to the partial cathodes is chosen individually and thus a required coating thickness profile over the height of the coating chamber is achieved.

The invention relates to a device and a method for producing layers with very good uniformity in coating systems with horizontally rotating substrate guiding. Alternatively, certain layer thickness gradients can be set. The particle loading is also significantly reduced. The service life is much higher compared to other methods. Parasitic coatings are reduced. The coating rate is also increased.

Some embodiments may include a nanosecond pulser comprising a plurality of solid state switches; a transformer having a stray inductance, L.sub.s, a stray capacitance, C.sub.s, and a turn ratio n; and a resistor with a resistance, R, in series between the transformer and the switches. In some embodiments, the resonant circuit produces a Q factor according to

[00001]$Q=\frac{1}{R}.Math.\sqrt{\frac{L_s}{C_s}};$

and the nanosecond pulser produces an output voltage V.sub.out from an input voltage V.sub.in, according to V.sub.out=QnV.sub.in.

A sputtering system and method are disclosed. The system includes first power source coupled between a first and second power leads, and the first power source provides a first voltage that alternates between positive and negative during each of multiple cycles. The system also includes a second power source coupled between the second power lead and a third power lead, and the second power source provides a second voltage that alternates between positive and negative during each of the multiple cycles. A controller of the system controls the first power source and the second power source to phase-synchronize the first voltage with the second voltage, so both, the first voltage and the second voltage, are simultaneously negative during a portion of each cycle and simultaneously positive during another portion of each cycle.

A magnetically enhanced HDP-CVD plasma source includes a hollow cathode target and an anode. The anode and cathode form a gap. A cathode target magnet assembly forms magnetic field lines that are substantially perpendicular to a cathode target surface. The gap magnet assembly forms a cusp magnetic field in the gap that is coupled with the cathode target magnetic field. The magnetic field lines cross a pole piece electrode positioned in the gap. This pole piece is isolated from ground and can be connected with a voltage power supply. The pole piece can have a negative, positive, or floating electric potential. The plasma source can be configured to generate volume discharge. The gap size prohibits generation of plasma discharge in the gap. By controlling the duration, value and a sign of the electric potential on the pole piece, the plasma ionization can be controlled. The magnetically enhanced HDP-CVD source can also be used for chemically enhanced ionized physical vapor deposition (CE-IPVD). Gas flows through the gap between hollow cathode and anode. The cathode target is inductively grounded, and the substrate is periodically inductively grounded.

An apparatus (1b) and method of depleting a plasma of electrons in a plasma coating apparatus is disclosed. The invention involves generating a plasma comprising ions (9), particulate material (5) and electrons (6) adjacent a target (4); forming a plasma trap (52) to constrain the plasma near to the target (4), and depleting the plasma of electrons by: providing an additional magnetic field (8b) that is superimposed over the magnetic field of the plasma trap (3, 52), which extends beyond a boundary layer (52) of the plasma trap, and which draws electrons (6) from, or near to, the boundary layer (52) of the plasma trap away from the target (4). The invention proposes applying a baseline voltage (50) to the target (4); and by applying periodic voltage pulses (13b) to the target (4). The additional magnetic field (8b) depletes the plasma of electrons, such that when a voltage pulse (13b) is applied to the target (4), ions (9) can be ejected from the plasma with reduced electron shielding. This has been shown to improve ion bombardment and reduce adverse electron bombardment effects.

A DC magnetron sputtering apparatus is for depositing a film on a substrate. The apparatus includes a chamber, a substrate support positioned within the chamber, a DC magnetron, and an electrical signal supply device for supplying an electrical bias signal that, in use, causes ions to bombard a substrate positioned on the substrate support. The substrate support includes a central region surrounded by an edge region, the central region being raised with respect to the edge region.

The invention relates to a gas injector (10) for supplying gas or a gas mixture to a reaction region (16). The gas injector (10) contains a main part (12) with a gas channel (14). Furthermore, a gas feed (30) is provided for the gas channels (14). The gas or the gas mixture reaches the reaction region (16) from the gas channel (14) via a first opening (26) or a first group (54) of openings (26) in the main part. The main part (12) is equipped with a second opening (27) or a second group (56) of openings (27) via which the gas of the gas mixture likewise reaches the reaction region (16) from the gas channel (14). Each of the openings (26, 27) or the groups (54, 56) of openings (26, 27) is paired with a respective separate gas feed (30, 40) in the main part (12) on the gas channel (14).