Discharge parameters of a magnetron with a molybdenum target

Abstract

In this work, we study the features of the discharge of a magnetron with a cold molybdenum target in an argon environment using a Langmuir probe. The novelty of this work is due to the placement of the probe near the anode. I-V characteristics of the probe were measured in the range of discharge current densities of 27–96 mA/cm2 at argon pressures of 2 – 4 mTorr. The experimental I-V characteristics of the probe were used to calculate the electron temperature, ion and electron density. It was found that the density of charge carriers increases and the electron temperature decreases with an increase in the discharge current. In addition, it was found that the density of ions near the anode is almost an order of magnitude lower than the density of electrons, and the electron temperature weakly depends on the argon pressure.