DISCHARGE CHARACTERISTICS OF Ti AND FILM PREPARATION USING HYBRID HIGH POWER IMPULSE MAGNETRON SPUTTERING
LI Xiaochan1,2, KE Peiling1(), LIU Xincai3, WANG Aiying1
1 Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 3152012) Faculty of Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo 3152113) School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211
Cite this article:
LI Xiaochan, KE Peiling, LIU Xincai, WANG Aiying. DISCHARGE CHARACTERISTICS OF Ti AND FILM PREPARATION USING HYBRID HIGH POWER IMPULSE MAGNETRON SPUTTERING. Acta Metall Sin, 2014, 50(7): 879-885.
Hybrid high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) is a new-generation HIPIMS technique with a pulse and dirrect current power supply parallelled connection operation. In this work, the influence of dirrect current from 0 to 4.0 A supplied by the dirrect current power is investigated on hybrid HIPIMS Ti discharge characteristics, plasma parameters (plasma potential, electron temperature and electron density) and Ti film properties in an Ar atmosphere. The results show that target voltage and current are characterized by a peak with variation of time in different dirrect currents. Although the target voltage is barely affected, the target current decreases with increasing the dirrect current during the pulse turn-on stage. The plasma parameters determined by a Langmuir probe have been significantly influenced by the dirrect current. Moreover, the deposition rate and average roughness increase while the hardness and elastic modulus have a slight decrease with the variation of dirrect current from 1.0 to 3.0 A. The samples are selected for comparison with that prepared by conventional direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) at the same average target power 650 and 1500 W. The results demonstrate that Ti films using hybrid HIPIMS have a close deposition rate and a superior quality and performance to those prepared using DCMS especially at the low target power 650 W when the direct current is 1.0 A.
Fund: Supported by National Basic Research Program of China (No.2013CB632302), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51375475) and Innovation Team Project of Ningbo (No.2011B81001)
Fig.1 Schematic diagrams of hybrid high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) and conventional direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) deposition system (a) and a parallel connection operation mode of hybrid HIPIMS power supply (b) (L—inductive coil)
Fig.3 Influence of coupling direct current (Idc) on the Ti target voltage (a) and current (b)
Fig.4 Influence of Idc on plasma potential Vs, electron temperature Te (a) and plasma electron density Ne (b)
Fig.5 Influence of Idc on the substrate current
Fig.6 Variation of deposition rates of Ti films with Idc (a) and comparison of Ti films deposition rate between the hybrid HIPIMS and conventional DCMS (b) under different average target powers
Fig.7 Surface morphologies of Ti films prepared by the hybrid HIPIMS and conventional DCMS with different Idc and average target power P
(a) hybrid HIPIMS, Idc=1.0 A, P=650 W (b) hybrid HIPIMS, Idc=3.0 A, P=1500 W
(c) conventional DCMS, P=650 W (d) conventional DCMS, P=1500 W
Fig.8 Average roughness of Ti films prepared by the hybrid HIPIMS with different Idc (a) and comparison of average roughness of Ti films between the hybrid HIPIMS and conventional DCMS under different P (b)
Fig.9 XRD spectra of Ti films prepared by hybrid HIPIMS and conventional DCMS with different Idc and P
Fig.10 Hardness (a), elastic modulus (b) of Ti films under different Idc withthe hybrid HIPIMS and comparison of hardness (c), elastic modulus (d) of Ti films between the hybrid HIPIMS and conventional DCMS under different P
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