Picodeon develops technique for depositing diamondlike films onto wide range of substrates

Ii, Finland--This has been the week for diamond photonics. In the past few days we've reported on Element Six and its CVD synthetic diamond, and on boron arsenide as potential competitor to diamond for conductive cooling; now, Finnish coating specialist Picodeon announces its technique for depositing diamondlike films onto many types of substrates.

Ultrashort pulsed laser deposition (US PLD) is a cold-ablation process that creates superhard, pinhole-free surfaces (greater than 40 GPa) with a low coefficient of friction and high coating adhesion, says Picodeon. The process uses a high laser pulse repetition rate and produces a fan-shaped plasma bloom. The company says this enables high production rates for coating of components for optical, medical, and sensor applications.

“Any components that need to have the highest possible hardness or wear resistance can achieve improved life cycles, greater heat and pressure resistance, and/or improved performance with diamondlike coatings,” said Picodeon CEO Marko Mylläri.

Adjusting processing parameters allows the structure and properties of the coating to be tailored to the requirements of the application -- even for nanostructure-scale surface coatings (such structures are becoming more common on optical and sensor surfaces).

The process also enables deposition of other coatings such as carbon nitrides, carbon nitride composites containing PTFE or boron nitride, and other borides, oxides, and precious-metal thin films.