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A comparison of quadrupole mass spectrometric (QMS) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) characterization of silver nano-cluster deposition produced by a nano-cluster source consisting of a planar DC magnetron sputter source in a high pressure gas aggregation chamber is presented and discussed. Cluster sizes and size distributions detected by the two different techniques are compared and the differences are discussed. The effects of He to Ar ratio, gas flow and magnetron power on the cluster size distribution are evaluated. The influence of the target erosion and aging effects are mentioned, too.

The characterization of energy influxes from plasma to substrate during sputter deposition of ZnO films is presented and discussed. Measurements were carried out in a triple rf magnetron sputter deposition system using calorimetric probes in various Ar/N 2 and Ar/H 2 mixtures at typical substrate positions. By variation of the probe bias the different contributions originating from the kinetic energy of charge carriers, the recombination of charge carriers (electrons and ions) at the surface as well as the contributions from the impact of neutral sputtered particles and subsequent film growth were determined. Radial scans in the substrate plane were recorded to obtain information about inhomogeneities in the total energy influx.The results show that the crystallinity reaches its optimum at that Ar/N 2 ratio where the influence of the bombarding ions reaches its lowest value, indicating the destructive character of ion impact. Radial measurements indicate the influence of the magnetic field on the homogeneity of the energy influx caused by the superposition of the three (balanced) magnetic configurations. The superposition leads to an 'unbalanced character' resulting in a lowering of the electron trapping. The admixture of H 2 leads to a drastic increase in the energy influx due to molecule formation at the (substrate/probe) surface.

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Energy flux measurements by a calorimetric probe in a rf-magnetron plasma used for the deposition of super-hard c-BN coatings are presented and discussed. Argon as working gas is used for sputtering a h-BN target. Adding a certain amount of N2 is essential for the formation of stoichiometric BN films, since a lack of nitrogen will lead to boron rich films. Subsequently, the contributions of different plasma species, surface reactions, and film growth to the resulting variation of the substrate temperature in dependence on nitrogen admixture are estimated and discussed. In addition, SRIM simulations are performed to estimate the energy influx by sputtered neutral atoms. The influence of magnetron target power and oxygen admixture (for comparison with nitrogen) to the process gas on the total energy flux is determined and discussed qualitatively, too. The results indicate that variation of the energy influx due to additional nitrogen flow, which causes a decrease of electron and ion densities, electron temperature and plasma potential, is negligible, while the admixture of oxygen leads to a drastic increase of the energy influx. The typical hysteresis effect which can be observed during magnetron sputtering in oxygen containing gas mixtures has also been confirmed in the energy influx measurements for the investigated system. However, the underlying mechanism is not understood yet, and will be addressed in further investigations.