Physical and technological features of the arc vacuum system for coatings deposition based on the plasma arc accelerator

Here the authors present the results of investigations of the space structure and energy parameters of the plasma flow in the vacuum arc system with the sacrificial cathode in the magnetic field which provides confinement of the arc discharge near the end operating cathode surface and the additional acceleration of the plasma flow towards the processed article as well. As a result, under the operating pressure up to 100 Pa the directed flow of the coating material plasma with the maximum energy of the ion component up to 150 eV and with the flow density up to 20 mA/cm/sup 2/ is formed. The investigated plasma arc accelerator (PAA) allows to produce the high quality coatings with the diminished micro-drops fraction onto metal, dielectric substrates under operating surface temperatures lower than 450 K using the cathodes from the easily melting materials with melting temperatures lower than 2000 K.