Apparatus for continuous reactive metal deposition in vacuum with web looping over upper and lower rollers

摘要

Apparatus and method for coating a plastic web with dielectric coatings formed in-situ by the reaction of a reactive gas with deposited metal as the web passes over lower and upper arrays of rollers in a vacuum chamber. The lower rollers are in a lower-pressure zone at which metal is deposited onto the web by vaporization, and the upper rollers are in a higher-pressure zone where the reactive gas reacts with the deposited metal. The reactive gas can be excited by a magnetron. The rollers of one array can be lower than other rollers thereof and be larger than rollers of the other array such that curvature of the web as it passes around the larger rollers is minimized.