AVS 49th International Symposium
    Thin Films Tuesday Sessions
       Session TF-TuP

Paper TF-TuP7
Mass and Optical Spectroscopy during Super-high Rate Ni Deposition by an rf-dc Coupled Magnetron Sputtering System with Multipolar Magnetic Plasma Confinement

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 5:30 pm, Room Exhibit Hall B2

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: M. Ohnishi, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan
Authors: M. Ohnishi, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan
K. Kumabuchi, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan
Y. Yamagata, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan
K. Kawabata, Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan
H. Kajioka, Industrial Research Institute Hiroshima Prefecture West, Japan
Correspondent: Click to Email
Magnetron sputtering systems offer an attractive alternative to electroplating fabricating techniques for films. Unfortunately, a high rate sputtering system for ferromagnetic films by conventional magnetron sputtering with a thick target of magnetic materials is difficult, because of the lower magnetic field above the target. An rf-dc coupled magnetron sputtering system with multipolar magnets around a Ni target (200mm@phi@, 8mm thick) has been designed and tested for super-high rate Ni deposition. The deposition rate of the Ni films linearly increases with increasing dc power at an rf power of 50W and an Ar gas pressure of 0.5Pa and reaches the highest value of about 1.1µmm/min at a dc power of 20kW and at a distance of 120mm from the target surface. We measured simultaneously the ion energy distribution and optical emission spectra during high rate deposition for Ni films by an energy-resolved mass spectrometer PPM-422 (Balzers) whose orifice was set in front of the sputtering target at a distance of 260mm and by an optical emission spectrometer (OES), respectively. As the dc power increases, the peak energy of Ar@super +@ ion spectra shifts to a lower energy of a few eV from about 22eV and also that of Ni@super +@ ion spectra shifts to a lower energy of a few eV from about 12eV. The behavior in the energy of Ar@super +@ and Ni@super +@ ions in this experiment may be attributed to the plasma quenching induced by the increase in the number of sputtered Ni atoms in the plasma region. The experimental results show that the intensity of both the Ni@super +@ and Ar@super +@ ion spectra increases with increasing dc power, and the intensity ratio of Ni@super +@ to Ar@super +@ ions is more than 0.1 during high rate deposition. It is also observed from the OES results that the intensity of Ni@super +@ ion lines and Ni-neutral atom lines increases with increasing dc power, and is significantly higher than that of Ar@super +@ ion lines and Ar-neutral atom lines.