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In Dynamic Recoil Mixing (DRM) a film of constant thickness is sputtered on to a substrate by using a broad low energy (lkeV) ion beam and is subsequently bombarded by a high energy (10 key) ion beam. During the bombardment process a dynamic balance is maintained between the backsputtering and the deposition of the film, thus providing an 'unlimited' source of the dopant material.In this way very high surface dopant concentrations may be achieved which otherwise cannot be reached by more conventional ion beam mixing techniques.Furthermore, by choosing reactive ion species, films of novel chemical compositions may be produced.This technique has been employed to produce silicon nitride films on polished commercial mild steel samples.Measurements of knoop hardness of these films indicate an increase of over 200% whilst the wear and friction properties have shown considerable improvement. Conventionally sputtered silicon films of similar thickness, recoil mixed silicon using argon, or implantation of 10 keV argon and nitrogen to similar doses, indicate only a modest change in tribological characteristic compared to the reactive mixed films.

PurposeTracks, pads and vias on printed circuit boards can suffer from a variety of problems, if the surfaces are contaminated with electrically‐conducting substances. Aims to model a multilevel full‐factorial design to study the effects of temperature, voltage and electrode gap on dendritic growth under saturated conditions, i.e. water droplet contamination.Design/methodology/approachPreparation of several DC‐biased combed‐copper interdigitated capacitors placed in temperature‐controlled water‐filled cuvettes enabled the specific monitoring of dendrite activity. The monitoring used the detection of sharp current increase that accompany a dendritic short circuit condition.FindingsA high R2 polynomial model was produced and it was noted that increased voltages reduce the reliability impact of dendritic growth.Originality/valueThe paper focuses on the reliability impact dendritic growth in saturated conditions.

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