Abstract
A series of experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of magnetron configuration on the performance of a dual unbalanced magnetron system. The rig was operated in the closed-field (CF), mirrored-field (MF) and, for comparison, single unbalanced magnetron (UBMS) configurations. The performance of the rig was assessed in tenns of the substrate ion current density, I s , deposition rate, R, and the ion-to-atom ratio incident at the substrate, J i /J a . R was not significantly influenced by magnetron configuration. Also, for all configurations. R decreased with increasing substrate-to-target separation, d s-t , in a relationship of the form R=a(d s-t ) b , where b-2. I s also decreased with increasing d s-t . However, I s values were 2-3 times lower, and the rate of decrease of I s with increasing d s-t was greater, when operating in the MF, or UBMS mode, compared to the CF mode. Values of b in the relationship I s =a(d s-t ) b were -0.26, -0.53 and -0.59 for the CF. UBMS and MF modes, respectively. An important finding of this study is that, although both deposition rate and ion current density decrease with increasing separation, because the rate of change with separation is different in each case, the ion-to-atom ratio actually increases with increasing separation. For example, operating in the CF mode. J i /J a was found to increase from 1.25 to 3.0 when d s-t as increased from 80 to 150 mm.
Published Version
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