Abstract
The Zr film microstructure is highly influenced by the energy of the plasma species during the deposition process. The influences of the discharge pulse width, which is the key factor affecting ionization of sputtered species in the high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) process, on the obtained microstructure of films is investigated in this research. The films deposited at different argon pressure and substrate biasing are compared. With keeping the same average HiPIMS power and duty cycle, the film growth rate of the Zr film decreases with increasing argon pressure and enhancing substrate biasing. In addition, the film growth rate decreases with the elongating HiPIMS pulse width. For the deposition at 1.2 Pa argon, extending the pulse width not only intensifies the ion flux toward the substrate but also increases the fraction of highly charged ions, which alter the microstructure of films from individual hexagonal prism columns into a tightly connected irregular column. Increasing film density leads to higher hardness. Sufficient synchronized negative substrate biasing and longer pulse width, which supports higher mobility of adatoms, causes the preferred orientation of hexagonal α-phase Zr films from (0 0 0 2) to (1 0 1¯ 1). Unlike the deposition at 1.2 Pa, highly charged ions are also found during the short HiPIMS pulse width at 0.8 Pa argon.
Highlights
Zirconium (Zr) exhibits exceptional properties, such as low neutron absorption crosssection, high mechanical strength, high melting temperature, resistance to corrosion and Received: 27 November 2020 Accepted: 21 December 2020 Published: 23 December 2020 oxidation [1,2,3,4]
This research preliminarily investigates the influences of basic parameter settings, including discharge pulse width, deposition pressure and substrate bias, on the high-power impulse magnetron sputtering deposition of zirconium film with the same average power and pulse duty cycle
Applying the synchronized negative substrate bias voltage effectively intensifies the energy of sputtered species and adatoms, in order to alter the loosened columnar film microstructure into a more crystalline, epitaxial granular, and denser one
Summary
Zirconium (Zr) exhibits exceptional properties, such as low neutron absorption crosssection, high mechanical strength, high melting temperature, resistance to corrosion and Received: 27 November 2020 Accepted: 21 December 2020 Published: 23 December 2020 oxidation [1,2,3,4]. Zirconium could be a potential source to fabricate high-k gate dielectrics in semiconductor field-effect transistors and a candidate for infrared reflectors [14,15]. Most of these Zr-contained alloy or compound films are deposited by applying physical vapor depositions (PVD) [4,5,15,16,17,18,19,20,21], parts are prepared by plasma spray and chemical vapor deposition [10,22]. Since zirconium is a raw material for products in such a wide range of applications, and various deposition techniques of zirconium-contained coatings have been attempted and industrialized, knowing the properties and discharge behavior of zirconium sources is essential for the process control
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