Report from the IUVSTA Vacuum Metallurgy Division

ECM-87-10G-01 ECM-87-10G-01

Prepared for ECM 87, Brighton, England

A VMD report was presented by Professor J E Greene, at the STD/ECM 86 in Portoroz, Slovenia, 7-9 October 2000. Prior to that the last full VMD meeting was held in conjunction with the ICMCTF at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego, USA. The attendees were J Colligon, G Exarhos, L Guzman, B Holloway, A Korhonen, D Marton, A Matthews, I Petrov and B Sartwell. Substantive items discussed included reports from the SVC-15 program planning meeting, and ECM-85, both held in Numur, Belgium on 31 March to 2 April 2000. Some of the key points from the San Diego meeting are given below.

Greg Exarhos summarised the outcomes of the IVC-15 program planning meeting held at the Novotel in Weipon, Belgium near Namur on Saturday, 1 April 2000. The IVC conference is to be held in conjunction with the International AVS annual symposium in San Francisco, CA in November of 2001. Dr William Rogers has been appointed the General Meeting Chair and Professor Roger Stockbauer has accepted the appointment as Technical Program Chair. It is anticipated that the meeting will run 19 parallel sessions and have an estimated attendance well in excess of 4,000 people. Each of the IUVSTA Divisions has been assigned a fixed number of technical sessions and charged with identifying joint sessions with other divisions in key topical areas. In the listing of topics, the VMD leads some five sessions and is a co-leader of five sessions. The listed sessions are grouped by topics.

Topic Session Leads

Applied Surface Science Surface Modification ASS + VMD

Plasma Science Fundamentals of IPVD/PECVD PS + TF +VMD

Surface Engineering Surface Engineering I: Cleaning, ASS + VMD Modification & Finishing

Surface Engineering Surface Engineering II: Graded VMD Multicomponent & Complex Coatings

Surface Engineering Hard & Superhard Coatings VMD + TF

Surface Engineering Protective Layers: Oxidation, VMD Corrosion and Erosion Resistant

Surface Engineering Metallurgical Processes in VMD Controlled Environments

Surface Engineering Mechanical Properties and TF + MEMS + VMD Stress in Thin Films

Tribology Tribological Surface Engineering VMD For Lubrication & Wear Resistance ECM-87-10G-01 ECM-87-10G-01

In the listing above, the original sessions proposed by each Division within IUVSTA were partitioned among twenty-one topical areas developed by the Program Chair. This approach was taken in order to identify synergism among the different divisional sessions that had been proposed. The result of this exercise will be used to form an initial outline for the IVE-15 Call for Papers. The committee has decided to offer a Session on metallurgical processing for one more year. There was little interest in this topic at the Birmingham conference, IVC-14, but several VMD members still wish to see this technical area represented in the program. As a result, Dr. Hiyashi (Japan) has been identified as a champion in this area- which has been broadened to include electron beam welding processing. Should a poor response to this topic be evident at IVC-15, the VMD committee will again discuss whether the topic should be included in future technical programs. No paper proceedings are for IVC-15. Instead a “virtual proceedings” with links to papers in the respective topical areas is to be implemented.

The IUVSTA held ECM-85 at the Beauregard Hotel in rainy Namur, Belgium on 31 March – 2 April. Eight half-hour Divisional overview talks comprised the first afternoon’s activities. Allan Matthews presented a review on the status of hard coatings and coating technologies. He included a discussion regarding the emerging importance of nanoscience and nanotechnology in the hard coatings area. This NS&T theme also surfaced in many of the other Divisional presentations. An organizational business meeting was held the second day. However, since the VMD officers were involved with the IVC-15 technical program meeting, there was no VMD representation at the business meeting. The ECM-85 meeting on Sunday stressed the importance of communication among the electoral college delegates for each Division. There also was an emphasis on organizing and leading IUVSTA sponsored workshops. A report from the finance committee, new business, and the next ECM venue (Portoroz, Slovenia, 7-9 October 2000) were discussed. Greg Exarhos presented the VMD report to the IUVSTA governing body.

At the Numur ECM, the VMD secretary, Greg Exarhos, described divisional activities over the past year and reviewed key ideas developed from long-range planning discussions within the executive committee for the Division. A key item centered on identifying the current technical focus areas within the Division and charting how the technical focus of the Division has evolved since its inception. While some activity related to traditional vacuum metallurgy areas (vacuum melting and refining, metals recovery and powder processing, design and development of new coating technologies,etc.) still persists within the Division, by far the majority of current research and development interests spans the following areas; coatings for science and technology (high temperature, hard, optical, decorative, chemically and mechanically robust); coating characterization; post deposition modification of coatings; tribological coatings; tailored microstructures; and development of advanced coating deposition technologies. Therefore, in order to better serve the Divisional members and enhance the vitality of the Division, a prospective change in the Division name and the mechanism for initiating such a proposed change were discussed. This past year, the former VMD affiliated with the AVS similarly explored and recently implemented a Divisional name change. The new AVS-Advanced Surface Engineering Division germinated from these discussions, has been embraced by the AVS Divisional members, and has been formally approved by the AVS Board of Directors. The new name and divisional technical focus already have stimulated ECM-87-10G-01 ECM-87-10G-01 increased divisional vitality including a record number of papers presented at the Division-sponsored ICMCTF held in San Diego, in April 2000.

A prospective name change and revised technical focus will positively impact many aspects of IUVSTA-VMD activities. For example, a stronger technical program for this Division at IVC-15 can be realized by incorporating research areas best represented by the Divisional members. This was a key discussion topic during the Vacuum Metallurgy Divisional meeting held in San Diego, CA on 14 April 1999 in conjunction with the ICMCTF. Prospective Symposium topics and invited speakers were reviewed in preparation for the IVC-15 technical program planning meeting. At the 1999 meeting, the committee also discussed prospective ICMCTF workshop activity (described below) and co-opted two new members (Dr. Petrov from the USA, and Professor Han from Korea).

At the San Diego meeting, prospective VMD sponsored workshops were discussed. Long range planning for the next triennium identified a workshop topic that should be of great interest to Divisional members. The proposed topic is, Surface Engineering in the Magnetic Recording and Telecommunications Industries. A possible venue for this workshop would be Ireland where the recording giants IBM and Seagate have a strong presence. In the past year, the VMD is listed as co-sponsor of the following workshop: 29th IUVSTA Workshop; Selective and Functional Film Deposition Technologies for ULSI , November 19-23, 2000, Nagoya, Japan. Contact: [email protected]

The VMD is to be a co-sponsor of the following workshop: IUVSTA and FAPESP Workshop; Diamond and Related Materials – Growth and Application, August 6 – 10, 2001, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Contact: [email protected]

Also at the San Diego meeting the following occurred: • Some time was spent discussing the IUVSTA-VMD web page and links to other pages. Antti Korhonen volunteered to write a letter to M Sancrotti to determine what is required and how to implement the web links. (It was suggested that the AVS New York Office could help).

• The procedure for instituting a Divisional name change was discussed. This must begin with a letter to the full VMD electoral college reviewing the reasons for the name change and the anticipated benefits to the Division. The executive board must vote to approve the name change followed by a formal request to IUVSTA. Such a name change is not unprecedented as the Fusion Division changed its name to Plasma Science and Technique. The mechanism for implementing a name change begins with distribution of a letter of intent to the electoral college by the Divisional Secretary (Greg Exarhos). Pending approval by an e-mail vote, a formal request to the General Secretary of IUVSTA will be made by the VMD Chair (Antti Korhonen). The proposed name will be, Advanced Surface Engineering Division. ECM-87-10G-01 ECM-87-10G-01

• The final item for discussion focused on the members of the VMD Electoral College and how to achieve representation from all member countries. During the next year, the intent is to seek new Electoral College representatives from Germany and Mexico. Ivan Petrov and Allan Matthews will pursue this topic.

Overall, the VMD remains buoyant. This is evident in many ways – not least the active participation of its members in many international conferences (in addition to IVC and ICMCTF). These other conferences include the Plasma Surface Engineering Conference, held in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany (September 2000) and the Ultra-High Purity Base Metals Conference, held in Helsinki, Finland (June 2000). The latter was chaired by the VMD Chairman, Professor Antti Korhonen. The next VMD meeting will be in San Diego on 31st April 2001. Subsequently, VMD members will be at the SVC-15 Abstracts Selection meeting in San Francisco, Jun 1-3 2001.

Greg Exarhos/Antti Korhonen/Allan Matthews 27 February 2001