There are many different types of PVD materials used in a wide variety of different applications today. Understanding the advantage of PVD material process as well as how the individual industries and applications use the process is not only interesting but is shows just how the technology is being incorporated into many different uses.
The Method
All PVD materials are created through the process of PVD or physical vapor deposition. In this method a specific material will go through heating, or sputtering, to create a vapor of the material.
This vapor, through one of the several types of vacuum deposition methods, will create a coating on a specific target object. In this way, the coating is applied in the thinnest possible layer and also in an incredibly uniform fashion, something that would be virtually impossible to create without the PVD process.
The result is a very thin film on the target object. This thin film can be used for protection of the target object, or to prevent the metal or material of the target object from contacting any other material, including the air.
Advantages to PVD
There are some types of processes that produce end products that are similar in some ways to PVD materials, although they are not identical or even used with the same types of materials.
A good example of a similar concept would be found in electroplating, which has several potential complications and limitations in its application. With the precision offered with PVD materials, there can be very high tolerances, and this makes the process much more effective for research equipment and specific types of applications.
Additionally, with PVD materials, the thin film can be developed to be highly resistant to either corrosion or abrasion, which means that additional types of protectant surfaces or sealants are not required, something that may need to be added with other types of surfacing techniques, including electroplating.
Worth considering is the fact that PVD materials can include both organic and inorganic types of materials as the coating. This is very different than the coating methods that are restricted to just alloys and inorganic types of materials because of the process used.
PVD materials can be of any shape, and the ability for the coating to adhere to the surface of the target object makes this a perfect option for even the most complex parts and components for any type of application.
