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High rate deposition for the formation of high quality optical coatings

  • US 8,865,271 B2
  • Filed: 05/26/2004
  • Issued: 10/21/2014
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2003
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for forming optical coatings on a plurality of planar substrates in a chamber, the method comprising depositing a powder coating on each of the plurality of planar substrates from a product flow:

  • wherein the product flow results from a chemical reaction in a reactant flow comprising a first precursor at a first selected vapor pressure and a second precursor at a second selected vapor pressure,wherein a nozzle that directs a source of the reactant flow along a propagation direction into the chamber is moved within to the chamber to thereby move the reactant flow relative to the substrates and the chemical reaction is driven by a light beam that is moved within the chamber relative to the substrates,wherein the reactant flow has a cross section perpendicular to the propagation direction characterized by a major axis and a minor axis, the major axis being at least a factor of two greater than the minor axis, and the major axis is sufficiently large that the product flow simultaneously forms a layer on the structures along an entire linear dimension extending across the structures resulting in the deposition of the layer on the structures with one linear pass of the product flow across the structures,wherein the nozzle is connected to a flexible conduit that provides the reactants, with the flexible conduit moving inside the chamber as needed to provide a continuous supply of the reactants as the nozzle moves,wherein moving the light beam comprisespassing the light beam into the chamber through a first window, directing the light beam through the reactant flow in a direction parallel to the major axis, and passing the light beam out of the chamber through a second window, with the directing of the beam comprising reflection with a plurality of mirrors, andmoving the beam with the reactant flow to maintain passage of the beam through the reactant flow and parallel to the major axis,wherein the powder coating comprises the layer and the powder coating is deposited with a thickness of at least about 100 nm in no more than about 30 minutes for each planar substrate, andwherein the optical coatings on respective planar substrates have a standard deviation between the optical coatings on the planar substrates in average index-of-refraction for each planar substrate of no more than about 0.001 with a one centimeter edge exclusion.

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