COATINGS

A coating is a substance applied to other materials to change the surface properties, such as colour, gloss, resistance to wear or chemical attack, or permeability, without changing the bulk properties. A functional coating may be applied to change the surface properties of the substrate, such as adhesion, wettability, corrosion resistance, or wear resistance. In other cases, e.g. semiconductor device fabrication (where the substrate is a wafer), it adds a completely new property such as a magnetic response or electrical conductivity and forms an essential part of the finished product. At ST Instruments we provide surface measurement equipment to accelerate your research in this field.