US Patent 9869020 Protecting a target pump interior with an ALD coating

An apparatus and method for protecting a target pump interior, where a target pump (10) inlet is provided with an inlet manifold (20) and a target pump outlet with an exhaust manifold (30). The target pump interior is exposed to sequential self-saturating surface reactions by sequential inlet of reactive gases according to an ALD method via the inlet manifold into the target pump interior and outlet of reaction residue via the exhaust manifold, while the target pump is kept running or not running. A technical effect of the invention is protecting a pump interior, which can be also an assembled pump interior, by a conformal protective coating.