Chemical vapor reaction system

Claim 1

A vacuum vapor deposition apparatus comprising: a horizontally disposed vessel having an inside wall, a longitudinal extent thereof defining a deposition chamber, said vessel having a movable closure at one end thereof for loading and unloading; at least one upstream vapor supply conduit extending along a first elevation in the vessel and being perforated coextensively with the deposition chamber; means disposed at a second elevation in the vessel and coextensively aligned with the perforated portion of the supply conduit and supporting spaced substrates arranged in a stack along a longitudinal extent of said deposition chamber; said means including a continuous skirt portion conforming generally at a first one of its ends to the periphery of said stack at a location spaced from said inside wall and at its other end conforming to said inside wall: an arcuate vapor distributor conforming generally to the upstream portion of said stack, perforated coextensively with its longitudinal extent, and continously operatively associated with said first end of the skirt; and exhaust means including an exhaust region immediately downstream from said stack encompassing the entire lateral-to-flow cross section of the downstream side of the skirt, and an exhaust conduit conveying vapor from said exhaust region to the outside of the vessel; whereby vapor supplied through said perforated conduit and passing through said distributor is constrained to pass between the spaced substrates to effect said deposition and to exit through said exhaust region and exhaust conduit.