Is there a way to evaporate silicon monoxide (SiO) to create thin fim coatings without pinhole defects?
A. SiO has a tendancy of “spitting and streaming” during evaporation which will result in pinhole type defects in most coating applications. One way to reduce the particulates in your vapor stream is to use a “multi-baffled box source”. This type of source positions your evaporant material in two separate cavities, when heated it follows an indirect path through a series of baffles and then out the vertical chimney. Your substrate cannot see the bulk material at any time, this essentially eliminates any chance of spitting and streaming which can cause pinhole type defects. This type of source is pictured , with various configurations, on pages 31 through 34 of our catalog. Also, see our list of SiO related articles available to you on our “Technical Information” page. Q. When evaporating gold, I find that alot of my material “creeps” out of the evaporation area and wets to the leads of my boat source. I end up using more gold than I should. Do you have any recommendations for eliminati
