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Plastic, metal, and ceramic materials may be coated with metal films, polymer films, or oxide films for purposes such as aesthetics, wear resistance, electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance, and more.
– Common applications include hardware components, automotive parts, PCB industries, lead frames, semiconductor packaging, optical coating industries, and more. – Functional coatings may include base metals, precious metals, and conductive metal films. Organic materials or oxides are also commonly applied for optical or tactile functions. – Coating thicknesses can range from Å to nm, µm, 10 µm, or even thicker, requiring different analytical instruments depending on the thickness. – For organic coatings and oxide coatings, commonly used coating thickness analysis tools include SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) / ESCA (Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis) / Ellipsometry. – Common metal coatings include gold (Au), nickel (Ni), nickel-palladium (Ni-Pd), and nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P). Different analytical tools are used depending on the coating thickness, including SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) / XRF (X-ray Fluorescence) coating thickness analyzer / X-ray Imaging. |
