Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD)

Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD or IAD) is a technology that combines ion/plasma treatment with electron beam evaporation (or other PVD methods) to modify film growing dinamics and to get desired film properties which are impossible to achieve by conventional PVD methods. It is used to deposit conformal optical coatings with high densities on complex surfaces, hard coatings of compound materials, and adherent metal coatings.

The principal advantage of IBAD is that it has many independent processing parameters as process tool to modify  the thin film and to get the required morphology, density, internal stress, crystallization and chemical composition.

Advantages of films coated by IBAD:
 - higher density (important for optical coatings)
 - improved step coverage (conformality)
 - stable optical constants
 - lower scatering
 - defects free
 - significantly improved adhesion
 - absence of moisture-induced shift (environmental stability)
 - improved durability
 - lower stress

IBAD technology has a lower process temperature that open the possibility to make the coating on thermal sensitive substrates (PC, PMMA, PET).

IBAD has been widely used in the industry due to its middle position in terms of cost/performance between e-beam evaporation (lower film quality and lower cost) and Ion beam Sputtering (high quality films but low throughput with high cost).

I-Photonics IBAD coater started from 2002. The ORTUS coater line represents a powerful production tool with its modular design and high precision Process Control technology.