• Deposition

The transformation of vapors into solids, frequently used to grow solid thin film and powder
materials.
Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is a widely used method for the fabrication of thin films and surface coatings.
PVD has been used a lot at the industrial scale and also has been combined with different methods to produce
coatings with superior properties. Recent developments in nanoscience have made this method more and more
useful for the fabrication of layers with desired microstructure and properties. Recent advances in the development
of PVD strategy for the fabrication of micro- and nanostructured coatings are studied.
PVD is a vaporization coating technique, involving the transfer of material on an atomic level under vacuum
conditions. The process is in some respects similar to CVD, except that in PVD the precursors, i.e. the material to be
deposited, start out in solid form, whereas in CVD, the precursors are introduced to the reaction chamber in gaseous
form
PVD technique can be used with large number of substrate materials such as metals, alloys, ceramics, glass,
polymers etc. Spectrum of coating material is also very broad such as metals, alloys, metal oxides, carbides,
nitrides etc. PVD process is characterized by superior coating adhesion and ease of fine tuning the
microstructure by suitably selecting the coating parameters. Some of the salient domains for PVD are to
produce thin films for optical, microelectronic devices, tribological performance enhancement, corrosion
protection, thermal barrier, heat sinks and aesthetic coatings
 Amongst various PVD methods available, thermal evaporation method is popularly used due to its simplicity
and also large quantity of material can be evaporated on variety of materials. In this method, deposition of
material is achieved in a vapour phase by heating source material in vacuum.

Typically, PVD processes are used to deposit films with thicknesses in the range of a few nanometers to thousands
of nanometers.
However, they can also be used to form multilayer coatings, graded composition deposits, very thick deposits, and
freestanding structures.