Evaporation Boat: How it is made GENERAL PROPERTIES Evaporation Boats are ceramic components required for vacuum deposition of various types of metals e.g. aluminum, copper, silver etc. over various substrates. ALFA – Evaporation Boat (Supervac Industries) They are of two types – 1. A) – 2 Component Boat – This type of boat is made with Titanium Diboride (Conductor) and Boron Nitride (Insulator). 1. B) – 3 Component Boat – This is made with Titanium Diboride (Conductor), Boron Nitride (Insulator) and Aluminum Nitride (Insulator). Two Component boat is longer lasting and of better quality. In three component boat, Aluminum Nitride is added to bring down the cost. But consequently, it is lower in life and quality as well. Hence, users prefer 2 component boats to 3 component ones. Production of Evaporation Boats is very expensive, involving heavy, costly machinery, raw materials and running energy costs. Also it is protected by patent laws. Therefore, very few companies in the world are producing it.THE PROCESS There are 5 basic steps in the production of Evaporation Boats: 1. Preparing the powders – First of all, the powder particles are brought down to the desired size through milling. 2. Blending of the raw materials – The powders are mixed together in the desired ratio and blended thoroughly for the sake of uniformity in the raw material. 3. Hot-pressing – The blended raw material is then hot-pressed at a very high temperature (More than 1500⁰C) with a pressure of more than 150 tons. This delivers a big block of ceramic.
4. Machining – The hot-pressed ceramic block is then cut into boats with a diamond cutter. Each boat is ground for a smooth finish and dimensional accuracy. A cavity is ground into each boat. 5. Quality control – Each and every boat is measured for resistivity. After final inspection, boats are packed for shipping.
ALFA Boats come in various sizes and resistivity. Supervac Industries make Evaporation Boats known with the trade name – ALFA ONE – are made in various sizes and resistivity as per the customer’s requirement. ALFA ONE boats come with Supervac Industries’ stamp of world- class quality and reliability.