Pre-treatment of large area strips with the aid of a high power Hall current accelerator

A large aperture Hall current accelerator has been developed for ionic cleaning of glass and metallic strips before vacuum arc deposition of protective and decorative layers. The accelerator has a large aperture of 1400 mm and power up to 10 kW. Various gases can be used for sputter cleaning: argon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. The advantages of the Hall current source towards that of Kaufman in industrial processes are emphasized. The source sputter rates were measured. The maximal sputter rate is 7.5 nm/min for glass and 100 nm/min for poly(methyl metacrylate). The quality of ionic etching was demonstrated with the aid of Auger electron spectroscopy. The current–voltage characteristics for argon and oxygen are presented.