Originally posted by joe shmo
I suppose...if you can precisely mimic/control the loading caused by the deposition. Btw, are there any links that could give a hint to show how exactly this deposition process applies a force to the strip for clarification or perhaps you can try and explain the process in more detail?
The deposition is done in a vacuum chamber with argon as background gas. There is a target of the material to be deposited, and the volume between the target and the platen is charged with RF at about 500 to 1000 watts, which ionizes the argon. Now argon, at 40 AMU is a fairly heavy atom and when ionized like that it has a degree of kinetic energy that will allow it to blast off the surface layer of the target, whatever that is.
Aluminum, SiO2, SIC, titanium, chrome, whatever, the argon slams into the target and it is like a molecular bead blaster or sand blaster and the molecules of the target gets transported to the platen where the substrate to be deposited is sliding by back and forth, slowly getting coated by the target material. So the layers are built up bit by bit, from about 25 angstroms per pass of the platen to maybe 50 or more depending on the RF energy given to the argon gas which is at something like 10 microns of pressure, pretty low medium pressure.
So the layers go on the substrate and the metal strip layer after layer and in the process, there is a curling force, small but present, in that process. So the metal strip, which is one thousands of an inch thick and about 0.6 inch wide gets somewhat curled. The more the curl. the higher the stress level of the layers building up and the problem there is if the layer is subjected to forces such as heat or friction, the layers can delaminate, not a good thing. So the layers have to be built up with as little stress as possible.
Don't know if I can put it much better than that.