ICMCTF2011 Session A1: Exhibitor Keynote Session

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 8:00 AM in Room Tiki Pavilion

Tuesday Morning

Start	Invited?	Item
8:00 AM		A1-1 Reactive Modulated Pulse Power Magnetron Sputtering William Sproul (Reactive Sputtering, Inc.); Jianliang Lin, John Moore (Colorado School of Mines) There are many reports of reactive sputtering using high power pulse magnetron sputtering (HPPMS). Films such as aluminum oxide, titanium dioxide, and chromium nitride have been successfully deposited. Depending on the deposition condition, hysteresis effects have been observed whereas in other cases they have not been observed. Helmersson and co-workers at Linköping University have shown that they can reactively deposit aluminum oxide using the HPPMS process without any hysteresis effects, whereas Audronis and co-workers at Gencoa Ltd. have observed hysteresis effect during the reactive HPPMS deposition of titanium dioxide films. Modulated pulse power (MPP), which is an alternative form of HPPMS, has also been used for the reactive deposition of aluminum oxide, aluminum nitride, and chromium nitride (both CrN and Cr₂N) coatings. In all of the work reported to date for MPP reactively deposited coatings, only flow control of the reactive gas has been used, and there have been no reports about hysteresis effects. In the current study, the reactive deposition of different coatings using MPP power has been performed, and the reactive plasmas have been characterized to determine ion mass and ion energy distributions. These characterizations show that there is a high degree of ionization of the reactive gas along with the sputtered species. The structure and selected properties of the deposited coatings have been characterized, and a correlation between the plasma properties and the structure and properties of the coatings will be presented.