VACUUM COATING APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

A strip coating system 1 according to the present invention comprises a first pulley 2 carrying a flexible metal or Al substrate 3 wound up on the first pulley 2. Furthermore, the strip coating system 1 has a second pulley 4 (take-up pulley) for taking up the coated substrate 3. The coating process carried out in the strip coating system 1 is a continuous coating process. During the coating process the first pulley 2 and the second pulley 4 are rotated to move the substrate 3 continuously past a coating tool 5 for depositing coating particles 6 on a surface 3' of the substrate 3. After having passed the coating section with a speed v the substrate 3 carrying a coating film 7 on the surface 3' thereof passes an IR spectroscopic measurement device 8 for measuring the layer thickness of the coating film 7. An arrow 9 indicates a feedback control between the IR measurement device 8 and the coating tool 5. The feedback control 9 controls one or a plurality of process parameters of the coating tool 5 responsive to the measurement of the thickness of the coating film 7 detected by the measurement tool 8. Thus, an in-situ on-line measurement of the thickness of the coating film 7 may be implemented.