Metal film and metal film-coated member, metal oxide film and metal oxide film-coated member, thin film forming apparatus and thin film forming method for producing metal film and metal oxide film

Abstract

The metal film of the present invention is a dense film of a single crystal that has very low surface roughness and very good crystal orientation because an arithmetic mean roughness of the surface is not larger than 2 nm and a (111) peak intensity of X-ray diffraction is not less than 20 times the sum of all other peaks. Also the metal oxide film of the present invention is a dense film that includes less oxygen defects and almost no voids therein because a content of a non-oxidized metal is not higher than 1 mole % of a metal component that constitutes the metal oxide and a packing density is 0.98 or higher.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to a metal film and a metal film-coated member used for optical coating film or the like, a metal oxide film and a metal oxide film-coated member used for optical coating film, insulation film or the like, and a thin film forming apparatus and a thin film forming method preferably employed in the production of the metal film and the metal oxide film. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Coating of various substrates with metal films has been employed for such applications as decoration, improvement of electric characteristics and optical functions. Such metal films are employed for making use of intrinsic physical properties of the metals such as luster, shade, electric properties and optical properties in accordance to the application, while it is desired that the physical properties remain stable for a long period of time. [0003] In the case of metal films used in optical applications including reflector mirror such as thos...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] A main object of the present invention is to provide a metal film of high quality single crystal that has very low surface roughness and very good crystal orientation and a metal film-coated member.

[0013] Another object of the present invention is to provide a dense metal oxide film that includes less oxygen defects and almost no voids therein, and a metal oxide film-coated member.

[0014] A still another object of the present invention is to provide a metal film that can be formed even on the surface of a substrate of low durable temperature and has an excellent bonding characteristic with the substrate, a metal film-coated member, a metal oxide film and a metal oxide film-coated member.

Problems solved by technology

Meanwhile a metal film such as thin silver film formed by vacuum deposition is extremely vulnerable to the influence of the environment, and is subjected to white clouding caused by an oxide film formed on the surface thereof in about 24 hours when left in the atmosphere as it has been vapor-deposited, and the metal film may be blackened and peel off in the worst case.

Also when the metal film does not sufficiently adhere to the base material, water may infiltrate into the interface with the base material and cause erosion.

However, since the metal films obtained by these methods have rough surfaces with the crystal being poorly oriented, it has been difficult to achieve high reflectivity.

There have also been such problems as the white clouding of the metal film surface due to oxidation and weak bonding with the substrate surface as described previously.

However, since sufficient reaction energy cannot be obtained simply by accelerating oxidation in the case of vacuum deposition process in which chromium oxide is evaporated and deposited in oxygen gas atmosphere, the film tends to become deficient of oxygen resulting in insufficient resistivity.

In the case of ion plating and sputtering processes, oxidizing reaction is accelerated but the substrate is attacked by carrier gas or the like thus making it difficult to control the composition.

When aplastic material is used as the substrate, sufficient bonding of a film thereto cannot be achieved by the prior art method, and it has been difficult to form an insulation film of practical value.

Moreover, since the substrate cannot be maintained at a desired low temperature, materials that can be used in the substrate have been limited.

The thin film forming methods of the prior art described above have such a problem that a metal oxide film having a high packing density cannot be obtained.

Such a low packing density (in other words abundance of voids in the film) affects the optical characteristics of the film, and therefore the metal oxide film of the prior art has a low and unsatisfactory reflectivity in the region of visible light.

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