Is it possible to control degree of target poisoning during RF reactive magnetron sputtering by higher harmonic frequencies of discharge voltage?
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Frontiers in Low Temperature Plasma Diagnostics 8 - Book of abstracts |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Plasma physics |
| Keywords | higher harmonics; plasma; discharge; reactive sputtering; magnetron |
| Description | Reactive sputtering controlled by flow of the reactive gas suffers from problems in processing stability caused by an abrupt transition between the metallic and the compound mode. During this transition many important parameters including target composition and gas composition change dramatically. A sensitive monitoring method is proposed which is based on the measurement of amplitudes of fundamental or higher harmonic frequencies of discharge voltages. Voltage waveforms recorded from the cathode and from an uncompensated probe were analyzed. Uncompensated probe exhibited higher sensitivity significantly better than sensitivity of any other known electrical method used for the control of magnetron sputtering process. Moreover, some particular experiments show that the changes in amplitudes of the harmonics by the transition are due to the changes of the target composition rather than due the change of the gas composition. |
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