A Discharge Cell that Combines a Magnetron and a Hollow Cathode for Cleaning Substrates and Subsequent Deposition of Coatings

Abstract

A discharge cell that is electrically insulated from a vacuum chamber is described. The cell consists of a cylindrical mesh hollow cathode and a planar magnetron with a disk cathode, an unbalanced magnetic system, and an embedded insulated annular anode. The cell provides both cleaning of a substrate before the deposition and subsequent magnetron deposition of a coating. The magnetron is located on the side of the open end of the hollow cathode and the substrate is fixed in place inside the hollow cathode on the wall opposite to its open end. In the cleaning mode, the power supply is inverted, and the magnetron is used as the anode for the hollow cathode discharge. A discharge cell of this type provides high uniformity of cleaning, an increase in the cleaning rate, and a decrease in the minimum operating Ar pressure to ≈0.1 Pa in the substrate-sputtering mode. The operating pressure for the magnetron in the deposition mode is in the range of 0.3–1.0 Pa. The ability to rapidly transfer from the cleaning mode to the magnetron deposition by switching the power source without changing the pressure in the vacuum chamber positively affects the adhesion properties of the deposited coating.