Deposition substrate temperature and monitoring

• US 9,464,350 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2014
• Issued: 10/11/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rtx Corporation
• Original Assignee: United Technologies Corporation (Raytheon Technologies Corporation d/b/a RTX)
• Inventors: Mullin, Richard S., Kuzmichev, Anatoly, Belousov, Igor V., Kononenko, Yuriy G., Pankov, Oleg G., Ryzhikov, Dmitriy
• Primary Examiner(s): Capozzi, Charles
• Application Number:
  US14/215,986
• Publication Number:
  US 20140199490A1
• Time in Patent Office: 939 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: C23C 14/541 Heating or cooling of the substrates
• CPC Class Codes: G01K 1/026 arrangements for monitoring a plurality of temperatures, e.g. by multiplexing

Abstract

An apparatus for depositing a coating on one or more parts (21) has: a chamber (22); a part holder (64) for carrying the part(s); a bias voltage source (94) coupled to the part(s) to apply a bias voltage to the part(s); a source (34) of the coating material; a plurality of temperature sensors (76); and a plurality of leads (90) passing outputs of the temperature sensors out from the chamber. A temperature monitoring system (150) has a temperature data processor (300). At least one fiber optic link (223) couples the temperature data processor to the temperature sensors so as to electrically isolate the temperature data processor from the bias voltage.

Claims

1. An apparatus for depositing a coating on one or more part(s) (21), the apparatus comprising:

a chamber (22);

a part holder (64) for carrying the part(s) (21);

a bias voltage source (94) coupled to the part(s) to apply a bias voltage to the part(s);

a source (34) of the coating material;

a plurality of temperature sensors (76);

a plurality of leads (90) passing outputs of the temperature sensors out from the chamber;

a temperature monitoring system (150) comprising a temperature data processor (300); and

a plurality of fiber optic links (223) coupling the temperature data processor to the temperature sensors so as to electrically isolate the temperature data processor from the bias voltage,

for each temperature sensor, the apparatus comprises;

an associated fiber optic link of said plurality of fiber optic links (223);

an optical isolator (242) between the temperature sensor and the associated fiber optic link;

a preamplifier (228) receiving output of the associated one of the temperature sensors;

a low-pass filter (240);

the associated said optical isolator (242) between the preamplifier and the low-pass filter; and

a voltage-to-frequency converter (262) between the low-pass filter and the associated one of the fiber optic links (223); and

a frequency-to-voltage converter (280) between the associated one of the fiber optic links and the temperature data processor (300).

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

the temperature monitoring system comprises a temperature registration/recording unit (308) with one or more temperature monitors (310).

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

an automatic temperature control system (160) connected with the temperature data processor (300) at the input and with the bias voltage source (94) at the output to provide feedback temperature control by regulating parameters of the bias voltage applied to the part(s).

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

the source of coating material comprises an ingot (35) and an electron beam source (50) positioned to direct a beam (52) to the ingot.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

the part holder is on a sting assembly shiftable between;

an inserted condition where the sting assembly holds the part(s) within the chamber for coating; and

a retracted condition where the sting assembly holds the part(s) outside of the chamber; and

the source of the coating material is positioned to direct a flow of the coating material to the part(s) in the inserted condition.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

the temperature sensors are a plurality of thermocouples.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of the fiber optic links comprises:

a light-emitting diode (LED) (284);

a photodiode (286); and

a flexible optical fiber (224) positioned to carry light from the LED to the photodiode.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein:

the optical fiber has a length of at least 1 meter.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

a rotating brush collector (152) conveys outputs of the temperature sensors.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein:

the rotating brush collector also conveys the bias voltage from the bias voltage source to the part(s).

11. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein:

the temperature sensors are a plurality of thermocouples.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein for each one of the temperature sensors, the apparatus comprises:

a first AC/DC converter (364) supplying the associated preamplifier (228).

13. The apparatus of claim 12 further comprising:

a voltage stabilizer (354) coupled to supply power to the voltage-to-frequency converters (262); and

a second AC/DC converter (366) for supplying power to the low pass filters (240).

14. The apparatus of claim 13 further comprising:

a first decoupling transformer (340) and a first rectifying bridge (352) for supplying power to the voltage stabilizer (354); and

a second decoupling transformer (342) and a second rectifying bridge (356) for supplying power to an RF decoupling transformer (362) by a DC/AC converter (360) for powering the first AC/DC converters (364) supplying the associated preamplifiers (228).

15. The apparatus of claim 14 further comprising;

an isolation transformer (320) between a power supply (170) and the first and second decoupling transformers (340,342).

16. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the optical isolator is a non-fiber optic optical isolator.

17. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein:

for each of the of the frequency-to-voltage converter (280), the temperature data processor (300) comprises a corresponding analog-digital converter connected to a corresponding output of the frequency-to-voltage converter.