COATING DEPOSITION IN VACUUM MONITORING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING THE SAME Russian patent published in 2008 - IPC C23C14/54 

FIELD: method and apparatus for depositing coatings, possibly used in instrument making, electronic industry branch, in machine engineering.

SUBSTANCE: method comprises steps of exciting tuning fork on ends of which reference samples are placed; heating said samples till predetermined temperature values at comparing current values of their temperature with preset ones; measuring initial oscillation period and registering its value; depositing coating while measuring current values of tuning fork oscillations; detecting thickness of coating according to difference of initial and current values of oscillations of tuning fork on base of their comparison with results of test coating deposition; determining time moment of starting coating deposition; predicted time period till termination of coating deposition of predetermined thickness; preliminarily indicating termination of coating deposition process when coating thickness consisting 0.9 of predetermined coating thickness value is achieved; indicating moment of termination of coating deposition process onto reference samples at achieving predetermined thickness of coating.

EFFECT: improved information content, enhanced quality of coating deposition.

2 cl, 3 dwg