What kind of research are you doing? Sounds pretty cool!
In the biz environment, you typically get to something that has "good enough" economics, and you start shipping. At that point, you're afraid to touch the deposition equipment for fear of screwing up deliverables. This tends to freeze production economics at far less than what's possible.
I'm poking around to find the next 10x reduction in deposition costs. Everybody should be able to afford diamond doorknobs, don't you think?