AVS 51st International Symposium
    Advanced Surface Engineering Monday Sessions
       Session SE-MoA

Paper SE-MoA8
High Powered Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering of Metallic Films in Ar, Ne, and He Plasmas

Monday, November 15, 2004, 4:20 pm, Room 303D

Session: Structure Control of Hard Coatings in Sputtering Processes
Presenter: D.M. Mihut, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Authors: S.L. Rohde, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
J. Li, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
D.M. Mihut, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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High Powered Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering (alternatively, HIPIMS) can yield peak plasma densities >10@super 13@ cm@super -3@, three orders of magnitude higher than conventional sputtering, and also results in a higher fraction of ionized sputtered material. For sputtering of Ti almost 100% ionization has been observed, while for Cu around 70% of the metal was ionized, as compared with 5 to 10% for conventional magnetron sputtering. In the present study, the ionization efficiency of HPPMS has been investigated as a function of working gas using Ar, Ne, and He to sputter a variety of metallic targets (Cr, Al, Ti, and Cu). Successful deposition was achieved using all three working gases, and it was determined that the percentage of ionized metal reaching the substrate surface in each case varies with gas pressure, pulse energy, target metal, and gas species. Even using He as the working gas, it was possible to generate a highly ionized Al-flux - a very unexpected result. Additionally, there are preliminary indications that this highly ionized flux may be utilized in interface engineering during etch and pre-deposition stages. Selected films were studied both in-situ and ex-situ using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) to determine their optical properties and provide correlation between the optical properties and chemical/structural changes in the films, and thus providing a valuable resource for future work. In addition, some of these films were characterized post-deposition using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and nanoindentation. XPS, AES, and SE were used in tandem to reveal the crystal structure of the films observed under specific growth conditions.