The plasma vacuum arc sources found an effective application basically in deposition of hardening coatings. The main drawback of the evaporators having a cathode of a coaxial form is the presence of a drop phase and a limited in size effective operational zone of deposition which does not allow to produce coatings on large dimension products and to use these evaporators for anti-corrosion and decorative coatings.
The sectional planar vacuum arc sources with a cathode having a rectangular form do not only provide deposition of coatings on large areas but, in comparison with the evaporators with a cathode having a coaxial form, practically exclude a drop phase. The length of the effective operational zone of deposition of such evaporators is 0,9 of the height (length) of the side surface of a vacuum chamber.