In plasma-based deposition processing, the importance of low-energy ion bombardment during thin film growth can hardly be exaggerated. Ion bombardment is an important physical tool available to materials scientists in the design of new materials and new structures. Glow discharges and in particular the magnetron sputtering discharge have the advantage that the ions of the discharge are abundantly available to the deposition process. However, the ion chemistry is usually dominated by the ions of the inert sputtering gas while ions of the sputtered material are rare. Over the past few years, various ionized sputtering techniques have appeared that can achieve a high degree of ionization of the sputtered atoms, often up to 50 % but in some cases as much as approximately 90%. This opens a complete new perspective in the engineering and design of new thin film materials. The development and application of magnetron sputtering systems for ionized physical vapor deposition (IPVD) is reviewed. The application of a secondary discharge, inductively coupled plasma

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The high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) discharge is a recent addition to plasma based sputtering technology. In HiPIMS, high power is applied to the magnetron target in unipolar pulses at low duty cycle and low repetition frequency while keeping the average power about 2 orders of magnitude lower than the peak power. This results in a high plasma density, and high ionization fraction of the sputtered vapor, which allows better control of the film growth by controlling the energy and direction of the deposition species. This is a significant advantage over conventional dc magnetron sputtering where the sputtered vapor consists mainly of neutral species. The HiPIMS discharge is now an established ionized physical vapor deposition technique, which is easily scalable and has been successfully introduced into various industrial applications. The authors give an overview of the development of the HiPIMS discharge, and the underlying mechanisms that dictate the discharge properties. First, an introduction to the magnetron sputtering discharge and its various configurations and modifications is given. Then the development and properties of the high power pulsed power supply are discussed, followed by an overview of the measured plasma parameters in the HiPIMS discharge, the electron energy and density, the ion energy, ion flux and plasma composition, and a discussion on the deposition rate. Finally, some of the models that have been developed to gain understanding of the discharge processes are reviewed, including the phenomenological material pathway model, and the ionization region model.

Single-crystal TiN/VN strained-layer superlattices (SLS’s) with layer thicknesses lTiN =lVN =λ/2 (where λ is the period of the superlattice) ranging from 0.75 to 16 nm have been grown on MgO(100 ) substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffraction examinations showed that the films were single crystals exhibiting coherent interfaces and several orders of superlattice reflections. There was no evidence in either plan-view or cross-sectional TEM analyses of misfit interfacial dislocation arrays. The primary defects observed were dislocation loops with a diameter of 8–10 nm extending through several layers and small defects with a diameter of 1–2 nm that were confined within single layers. Microindentation hardness values H, measured as a function of λ in films with a total thickness of 2.5 μm, increased from 2035±280 kg mm−2 for Ti0.5V0.5N alloys (i.e., λ=0) to reach a maximum of 5560±1000 kg mm−2 at λ=5.2 nm and then decreased rapidly to 3950±550 kg mm−2 at λ=7.5 nm. Further increases in λ resulted in a slower decrease in H to 3640±550 kg mm−2 at λ=32 nm. The large error bars in the H values for the SLS samples were due to the difficulty in measuring such extremely high hardnesses in thin films. (H for pure single-crystal TiN and VN films were 2200±300 and 1620±200 kg mm−2, respectively.) SLS samples grown with constant λ=6.5 nm, but different lTiN /λ ratios, exhibited a maximum hardness at lTiN /λ≂0.3.

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