Coating of Mirrors
Coating of mirrors
The precise measurement of "nothing" since 1970
It is with our passion for precision that we support our customers with their vacuum applications. Vacuum allows a great variety of manufacturing processes. The same large field of applications is served by our vacuum products. Included applications are for example process industry, coating, analytics and R & D as well as semiconductor and solar.
BENEFITS AT A GLANCE
- Combination sensor Pirani / cold cathode
- The cold cathode sensor is automatically controlled by the Pirani
- Robust sensor design
- Overpressure stability of up to 16 bar abs.
Coating of Mirrors
During the optical coating of mirrors for laser resonators the typical process pressure lies above 2e-3 mbar.
Challenge
A suitable vacuum transducer must be able to monitor both, process pressure during the coating as well as the available minimum pressure of e-6 mbar in the vacuum chamber. Our client used to work with a Pirani/cold cathode combination gauge, the cold cathode monitoring minimum and process vacuum. However, the continuous operation above e-3 mbar resulted in early wear and tear of the sensor.
Solution
In the VSM transducer the Thyracont Pirani activates the cold cathode only below very low pressures. Further the transition between the two sensors can be configured according to the applications requirements. This way we achieved that the entire coating process is now monitored by the Pirani. The cold cathode is saved because it is active only when the appliance pumps down to minimum pressure. The availability of the coating plant improves significantly.