Vapor Phase Deposition Using LPPS Thin Film

LPPS-Thin Film is a vacuum plasma spray technology recently developed by Sulzer Metco. In comparison to conventional Vacuum Plasma Spraying (VPS) or Low Pressure Plasma Spraying (LPPS), LPPS-Thin Film uses a working pressure below 2 mbar and a high energy plasma gun. This leads to unconventional plasma jet characteristics which can be used to obtain specific and unique coatings. An important new feature of LPPS-Thin Film is the possibility to deposit a coating not only by melting the feed stock material which builds up a layer from liquid splats but also by vaporizing the injected material. The LPPS-Thin Film process fills the gap between the conventional PVD/CVD technologies and standard thermal spray processes. The vaporizing of coating material and coating out of the vapor phase result in new and unique coating microstructures. The properties of such coatings are superior to those of thermal spray and EB-PVD coatings. This paper reports on the progress made at Sulzer Metco to develop functional coatings build up from vapor phase. Metal and oxide ceramic coatings can be deposited for different applications.