Real-time and in situ monitoring of sputter deposition with RHEED for atomic layer controlled growth

Abstract

Sputter deposition is a widely used growth technique for a large range of important material systems. Epitaxial films of carbides, nitrides, metals, oxides and more can all be formed during the sputter process which offers the ability to deposit smooth and uniform films from the research level up to an industrial scale. This tunable kinematic deposition process excels in easily adapting for a large range of environments and growth procedures. Despite the vast advantages, there is a significant lack of in situ analysis options during sputtering. In particular, the area of real time atomic layer control is severely deficient. Atomic layer controlled growth of epitaxial thin films and artificially layered superlattices is critical for both understanding their emergent phenomena and engineering novel material systems and devices. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) is one of the most common in situ analysis techniques during thin film deposition that is rarely used during sputtering due to the effect of the strong permanent magnets in magnetron sputter sources on the RHEED electron beam. In this work we have solved this problem and designed a novel way to deter the effect of the magnets for a wide range of growth geometries and demonstrate the ability for the first time to have layer-by-layer control during sputter deposition by in situ RHEED.