E-beam evaporation

E-beam evaporation is widely used in large scale produktion, e.g. for metallizations, optical components or plasma displays.

The principle is simple: an electron beam is extracted from a source (e.g. from a heated filament or a discharge) and deflected by some kind of electron optics onto the evaporation material. Due to the extreme heat virtually everything can be vaporized.

The most commonly used arrangements are small evaporators, where the filament sits next to the crucible and is 270°- deflected by a magnet into the crucible.  This is an economic solution for laboratory use to evaporate a limited material volume. Due to the proximity to the crucible and resulting contamination, the lifetime of the filament is very limited.

In contrast, for the high power range beyond 100 kW there are pierce e-guns, with a sophisticated electron optics, to heat large volume crucibles in industrial scale facilities.

The Smart E-vaporator is closing this gap, making available the flexibility and reliability of large sources even at moderate power level up to 10 kW.