Sputter Deposition of Multicomponent Targets: What Parts of the Process Affect the Elemental Composition of the Film

Abstract

One of the key problems in the deposition of multicomponent films is to gain the correct and desired elemental composition of the film. This paper gives an overview about processes during sputter deposition, which influence the elemental composition of multicomponent thin films. Additionally experimental and theoretical results for the ion beam sputter deposition (IBSD) of NiFeMo and WTi alloys are presented. For both alloys the composition of the deposited films show a strong dependence of various parameters of the deposition process.