Verfahren zur Beschichtung einer Oberfläche von Tafeln oder Bahnen, insbesondere aus Glas

摘要

1,189,714. Coating by vapour deposition. LIBBEY-OWENS-FORD CO. July 17, 1967 [July 29, 1966], No.32704/67. Heading C7F. In a continuous process of vapour depositing a coating on sheets such as glass or plastics, the sheets are conveyed through inter-connected vacuum chambers of varying pressure conditions where they are cleaned by a glow discharge prior to being coated from one or more evaporation sources. The coating materials may be metal such as Al or Cr, a metal oxide such as Si O 2 or a metal halide. In an example, sheets of glass are first coated with Cr and then with Si O 2 . The sheets may be heated to 200‹ -700‹ F. prior to coating and the evaporation source is preferably heated by electron beam. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2 the sheets are washed in detergent at 11, rinsed and air dried at 12 preferably with air ionized by an A.C. corona discharge. By means of a turntable 14, loader 16 and transfer section 17 pairs of sheets are held vertically in a carriage which grips the top edge of the sheets and conveyed successively through vacuum chambers 26, 28, 31, 34, 40 and 44 at respective pressures of (2 x 10-1 - 5 x 10-3), (1 x 10-1 - 1 x 10-3) for glow discharge; (5 x 10-2 - 1 x 10-6) for preheating; (1 x 10-4 - 1 Î 10-7) for coating; (1 x 10-4 - 1 x 10-7); and (2 x 10-1 - 5 x 10-3) and controlled by valves 25, 27, 29, 32, 36, 45 and 47. The sheets are first dedusted in chamber 23 with ionized air, subjected to a glow discharge in chamber 28 using aluminium electrodes, optionally preheated in chamber 31 and coated in chamber 34 by being conveyed past three vertical rows of vapour sources 41, 42, 43 with four sources in each row. The conveyer in the coating chamber is in three sections, feed section 38 which slows down the sheets at the first coating zone to synchronize speed with that of the constant speed centre conveyer 37, and discharge section 39 which accelerates the sheets for transfer into chamber 40. The coated sheets are finally passed to chamber 44 which is vented to atmospheric pressure, cooled at 48 and conveyed along line 50 to the discharge and recharge point of the loading system.