Plasma-ionengestütztes Beschichtungverfahren und Plasmasonde

The invention relates to a plasma/ion-based coating method in which a steam jet (17) of a coating material is generated in a vacuum chamber (14) by means of a steam source (16), said jet being directed towards a substrate (19) in order to deposit a layer (20). During a coating process, an ion jet (1) directed towards the substrate (19) is generated by means of a plasma ion source (15) in order to introduce energy into the layer (20). At least one plasma characteristic variable is determined during the coating process by means of at least one plasma probe (21, 22, 23), and the measured plasma characteristic variable or a measured value calculated from the plasma characteristic variable is used by a control device (25) in order to control the coating process. The invention further relates to a plasma probe (21, 22) which is suitable for the method.