Aluminum vacuum chambers for LCD deposition
Alcoa aluminum plays a surprising role in the production of large-screen liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions. Alcoa Cleveland Works (Ohio, USA) and Samara Works (Russia)—part of Alcoa Forged and Cast Products—forge 100-200 huge vacuum chambers each year for use by electronics manufacturers to apply liquid crystals to polarize glass screens.
With consumers demanding bigger and higher quality screens, the super-clean narrow aluminum chambers are large enough to accommodate an eight-foot (2.4 meter) square panel of glass that is 60-thousandths of an inch thick (0.15 centimeters), which ultimately might form eight 42" (approximately 1 meter) televisions.
Aluminum's light weight makes the large sizes feasible; by forging we're able to provide a strong, single-piece solution. Alcoa also machines each part to specifications, saving customers time and money. The atomic structure of aluminum is ideal for the chambers, which require more exacting tolerances than some aerospace applications—a miniscule blemish in the chamber could lead to uneven application of the crystals, resulting in a "black dot" on the screen.
The market for vacuum chambers also is expected to grow with an increased demand for large solar cells used to collect the sun's rays for conversion to electricity, a market driven by worldwide demand for green energy technologies.
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