Gas Discharge Electron Sources - Powerful Tools for Thin-Film Technologies

Highly productive substrate pre-treatment, coating, and post-treatment methods are required to combine versatile and environmentally-friendly vacuum deposition processes with economic demands. Electron beam (EB) technologies are very promising to address these requirements. This paper gives an overview of various types of electron sources for different steps along the process chains in thin-film technology, and which are based on the generation of free electrons by gas discharges: Compact low-voltage EB sources based on the hollow-cathode arc discharge, which can generate intense plasma to assist or stimulate high-rate sputter etching, PVD, and PECVD processes; and high-voltage glow-discharge EB sources with hybrid cathode, which combine the simplicity of cold cathode EB guns with the superior beam quality of hot cathode EB sources.