Production of a film of material often on a heated surface and in a vacuum. Physical vapor deposition technology is used in a variety of applications. Coatings are produced from a wide range of materials, including metals, alloys, compound, cermets, and composites. The two basic processes for physical vapor deposition are evaporation deposition and sputter deposition. In evaporation, thermal energy converts a solid or liquid target material to the vapor phase. In sputtering, the target is biased to a negative potential and bombarded by positive ions of the working gas from the plasma, which knock out the target atoms and convert them to vapor by momentum transfer.