Growth Rate of Titanium Thin Film by High-Power Pulsed Sputtering (HPPS) Penning Discharge Plasma with the Inner Electrode

Abstract

High-power pulsed sputtering (HPPS) penning discharge is featured that the plasma is generated at a narrow gap consisting of a pair of cathodes as sputtering target in parallel each other. The magnetic field is provided by setting a set of permanent magnets behind the targets and the electric field is parallel to the magnetic field. The conventional HPPS penning plasma source is disadvantage in a narrow pressure range on the plasma production, and in particular, the lower limit of the pressure is 2 Pa or higher. This problem has been solved by setting an electrically-grounded electrode at the central region of the plasma source. The lower limit of plasma generation is lowered to about 0.5 Pa. In the case of titanium target, titanium films are deposited on the collector electrode for an HPPS Penning discharge in the presence of the inner electrode, and the deposition rate is 16 nm/min at argon gas pressure of 0.5 Pa, where the peak power is 15 kW at power consumption of about 310 W.