543.42The emission and fluorescence spectra at wavelengths of 580-650 nm during sputtering of yttrium, zirconium, and their alloys are studied for the purpose of developing spectroscopic methods for monitoring the composition of the gaseous phase during cathode sputtering of these metals in glow discharges in oxygen-argon atmospheres. The 584.2, 585.9, 587.4; 613.2, 614.8, 616.5, 617.9; 647.1, 648.7, and 650.3 nm lines are identified as molecular lines of yttrium oxide. The corresponding electronic transition energies are calculated. A correlation is found between the behavior of the emission and fluorescence spectra of the gaseous phase within this wavelength range during sputtering of yttrium in glow discharges and changes in the concentration of the oxygen-argon mixture. The dependence of the fluorescence and emission line intensities of the yttrium oxide molecule on the partial pressure of oxygen is studied.
Introduction.One of the important problems in microelectronics technology is the preparation of high purity films with various compositions and for different purposes by sputtering a target-sample (magnetron or cathode sputtering in glow discharges) with subsequent deposition of sputtered gas-phase molecules on a substrate. Sputtering can take place in a vacuum or in a reactive (e.g., oxygen) atmosphere. The properties of the resulting films depend on their stoichiometric composition and structural perfection, which, in turn, is determined by the composition of the gaseous phase and the sputtering conditions. Thus, films of intermediate vanadium oxide (VO 2 ) with thermochromism and a high temperature coefficient of electrical resistivity undergo a change in resistance by a factor of three when the concentration of oxygen in argon is changed by 1% [1]. The dielectric properties and surface morphology of laser deposited epitaxial Ba(Zr 0.3 Ti 0.7 )O 3 films depend substantially on the partial pressure of oxygen [2]. For the same reason, the phase composition and crystallite dimensions of zirconium oxide films change during film deposition [3]. Thus, finding optimum discharge conditions for creating a constant gaseous phase composition during sputtering-deposition processes means that the task of monitoring of this composition is extremely important.Various methods, direct and indirect, can be used for monitoring film deposition processes. The existing methods for direct in situ monitoring of the composition of sputtered films including x-ray structure analysis [4], x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman scattering [5], ellipsometry, pyrometry, etc.[6], require quite complicated and costly equipment. Therefore, in most cases indirect monitoring techniques are used, including the following: measuring the intensities of metal and oxygen emission lines [7], monitoring the cathode potential [8,9], measuring the IR optical absorption [6], measuring the partial pressure of oxygen in the vessel [1], and stabilizing the temperature [3] in correlation with the film quality. These monitoring techniques, however, do ...
