Recent Advances in Sputter Deposition

Abstract

This paper has two objectives. One is to review some of the essential features of the sputtering process. The second is to discuss several recent developments relating to the use of reactive sputtering for the deposition of oxide and semiconductor compounds and to the use of controlled substrate ion bombardment for the purpose of modifying coating properties. The particular topics include: (i) a magnetic field configuration that facilitates controlled substrate ion bombardment in planar magnetron sources; (ii) the use of baffelled targets and substrate ion bombardment for improving composition control during the reactive sputter deposition of metal oxides; (iii) the use of substrate temperature to assist in controlling the stoichiometry of semiconducting CuInSe2 coatings deposited by reactive cosputtering; and (iv) the use of ion bombardment to neutralize surface reactions and permit metastable single crystal compound semiconductors to be deposited.