Ensuring of high deposition rates by increasing of cooling efficiency

Performance investigations of two equipments for the cooling of metal strips are presented in the paper. The so called "brush cooling equipment" enables heat transfer coefficients up to 150 W/m2K. The cooling intensity depends on adapted strip winding force. Partial roughening of the strip has to be considered as unwanted concomitant phenomenon. An optimum for high cooling performance and moderate roughening was detected. Heat transfer coefficients of up to 600 W/m2K are demonstrated with the "gaseous cooling equipment". The designed cooling drum ensures high gas pressure up to 100 mbar inside the contact zone of the metal strip and the drum. Partially evacuation prevents high gas pressure in the vacuum process chamber. The realized pressure separation of six orders of magnitude enables the combination of "gaseous cooling equipment" with high-rate sputtering or electron beam evaporation. The demonstrated heat transfer coefficients describe a distinctive performance incr ease compared to known state of the art. Extensions concerning deposition rate or deposition of thick layers onto thin metal foils get feasible. In future should be checked whether the new developed equipments can be adapted for the cooling of plastic films as well.