Coating apparatus – Gas or vapor deposition – Running length work
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-07
2001-11-20
Mills, Gregory (Department: 1763)
Coating apparatus
Gas or vapor deposition
Running length work
C118S719000, C118S7230FI, C118S7230EB
Reexamination Certificate
active
06319326
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam, and in particular to an improved apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam which is capable of controlling the amount of a reaction gas and the energy of an ion beam, modifying the surface of a powder material and implementing a continuous surface modification of a material.
BACKGROUND ART
Conventional ion beam modification methods include methods based on a thin film fabrication and methods based on a surface cleaning process.
As the thin film fabrication methods, there are proposed an ion implantation using a high energy (tens of KeV to a few MeV), an ion beam irradiation, an ion beam sputtering deposition which is implemented by irradiating ionized particles from an ion source generating low energy (0 to a few KeV) particles onto a target for thereby generating a material to be deposited, a multiple ion beam deposition, a process for assisting a thin film fabrication, and an ion-assisted deposition.
In addition, as the surface cleaning methods, there are proposed a surface cleaning which is generated by irradiating energized particles onto the surface of a material and a reactive ion beam etching which is implemented by supplying a reaction gas into a vacuum chamber.
In case of the thin film fabrication using an ion beam, the thin film is fabricated by controlling the relative ratio of the particles between the to-be deposited particles and the assisted ion beam particles. In the case of the cleaning method using the ion beam, a reaction gas is ionized while controlling the occurrence of a plasma and the amount of the reaction gas, thereby implementing a quick surface cleaning, while the cleaning of the conventional wet reaction requires a long time.
FIG. 1
is a schematic view illustrating an earlier-filed (Korean Patent Applns. Nos. 2465/1996, 11994/1996, 11995/1996 and 11996/1196, the disclosures of which are incorporated hereinto by reference) surface modification apparatus which includes an ion source
10
having an ion gun
12
generating an ion beam IB and an assisted ion gun
14
generating an assisted ion beam AB, an ion beam current measuring unit
40
and controller
42
for respectively measuring and controlling the amount of irradiated energized ions, a sample holder
20
holding a sample material
22
the surface of which is to be modified by ions, a reaction gas control apparatus (not shown) having a reaction gas inlet
26
providing therethrough a reaction gas to the sample material
22
, a vacuum pump
28
generating a vacuum within an enclosing vacuum chamber
30
in order to facilitate the generation of the ion beams IB, AB.
The apparatus may be implemented in the following ways. First, oxygen is provided as a reaction gas around a polymer material, and argon ions are irradiated onto the surface of the material, thereby generating a hydrophilic functional group, in which an oxygen atom is chemically bonded with a carbon ring, on the surface of the polymer material. In addition, the argon ions are irradiated together with providing the oxygen to the surface of an aluminum nitride AlN, thereby forming a bonding of the AlON and a new material on the surface without affecting the material itself. Accordingly, various problems can be solved due to the variation of inherent properties of surfaces. For example, the adhesion of another material, adsorption, hydrophilic property with water, and surface strength of the material may be changed. In the ion beam assisted reaction, the particle energy having a lower energy band is generally used compared to the earlier deposition methods, and the amount of the ion irradiation is 10
13
-10
18
ions/cm
2
, and the amount of the reaction gas is also characterized in that the partial pressure around the material is higher than the total degree of vacuum in the vacuum chamber.
However, in the above-described ion beam irradiating apparatus, only the surface modification by the reaction gas is considered as an important matter. Therefore, the improvement of physical properties and the surface modification characteristic cannot have been obtained by controlling the amount of the reaction gas. Also, the energy of the ion beam applied to a sample material has been controlled by only the ion beam.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam which overcomes the aforementioned problems encountered in the background art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which is capable of controlling the amount of a reaction gas provided to the surface being modified while irradiating a specific amount of ion beam energy onto the surface of a material to be surface-modified, and controlling the ion energy of an ion beam applied to the surface, thereby forming a material on the surface which has a new chemical structure, whereby the degree of the surface modification is controlled by controlling the ion irradiation amount, the implanting amount of reaction gases and the particle energy of energized particles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for surface modification which can be applied to both-face irradiating type and continuous batch type processes in actual manufacturing.
To achieve the above objects, there is provided an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam according to the present invention which includes a chamber, a means for maintaining a vacuum within the chamber, an ion source having an ion gun for generating an ion beam, a holder on which a material to be surface-modified may be placed to be irradiated by the ion beam from the ion source, and a reaction gas supplying means for supplying a reaction gas to the material surface therethrough, wherein a voltage is applied to the holder while insulating the holder from the chamber, whereby an ion energy of the ion beam which is irradiated to the material surface is controlled.
To achieve the above objects, there is also provided an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam according to the present invention which includes a chamber, a means for maintaining a vacuum within the chamber, an ion source having an ion gun for generating an ion beam, a holder on which a material to be surface-modified may be placed to be irradiated by the ion beam from the ion source, a reaction gas supplying means for supplying a reaction gas to the material surface therethrough, and a separating means for separating a material reaction portion of the chamber in which the surface is modified when the reaction gas is supplied to the material surface, from a portion of chamber in which the ion source is provided, wherein the vacuum level in the material reaction portion of the chamber is maintained to be higher than that in the portion of the chamber in which the ion source is provided.
To achieve the above objects, there is further provided an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam according to the present invention which includes a chamber, a vacuum means for maintaining a vacuum within the chamber, an ion source having an ion gun for generating an ion beam, which is installed in an upper portion of the chamber, a holder for holding a powdered material to which an ion beam from the ion source is irradiated while agitating the powdered material, and a reaction gas supplying means for supplying a reaction gas to the powdered material therethrough.
To achieve the above objects, there is still further provided an apparatus for surface modification of polymer, metal and ceramic materials using an ion beam according to the present invention which includes a chamber, a vacuum means for maintaining a vacuum within the chamber, one or more ion sources each h
Cho Jung
Choi Won Kook
Jung Hyung Jin
Koh Seok-Keun
Darby & Darby
Hassanzadeh P.
Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Mills Gregory
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