A New Approach to the Deposition of Elemental Boron and Boron-Based Coatings by Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering of Loosely Packed Boron Powder Targets

Abstract

Large numbers of potential application areas for elemental boron and boron‐based thin film materials make this subject area a focus of significant scientific and industrial interest. Applications include thermoelectric energy conversion devices, biomedical implants, metalworking tools and automotive components. Boron is however also recognised widely to be a difficult‐to‐deposit material. Therefore, a new technique to deposit boron (and other boron‐based materials) by pulsed magnetron sputtering of loosely packed powder targets has been proposed. Among the benefits of this approach are: improved stability of the deposition process, increased speed and flexibility of target preparation, enhanced time‐ and cost‐effectiveness and the ability to control readily the target and hence the chemical composition of the coating.

Boron films produced by high energy Pulsed Laser Deposition

“…Hardness of B-alumina system versus penetration depth is visible inFig.7. At 1 m of penetration depth H IT is about 12 GPa that is compatible with the hardness of bare alumina(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20). Lowering the penetration depth results in an increasing of the hardness.…”

“…It is possible to deposit B film by Chemical Vapor Deposition, but the needed feed gases are expensive and often toxic and/or explosive [14]. Among the Physical Vapor Deposition techniques, boron carbide films are nicely produced by magnetron sputtering [15,16], but pure B is difficult to sputter because of its low atomic number [17]. Boron films have been deposited by e-beam evaporation in form of very thin films (~ 100 nm) with very low deposition rates (0.06-0.58 nm/s) [18].…”

Low temperature pure boron layer deposition for Si diode and micromachining applications

“…In the semiconductor field, ultrapure amorphous boron (a-B) is mostly prepared either by CVD [25,85], where it is common to decompose the molecule vapor of boron hydrides (BxHy) on the wafer surface and in the vacuum, or by PVD [86,87], where the solid phase elemental boron target is vaporized by plasma or electron beam, and boron atoms will subsequently land on the surface. In the chemical approach, the decomposition of boranes is usually realized by plasma or pyrolysis, such as direct current (DC)/radio frequency (RF)/electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) PECVD or LPCVD.…”

Deposition of thin films by sputtering cold isostatically pressed powder targets: A case study

“…Stable processing can however be achieved with loosely packed powders by reducing the power density on the target. This can be done by pulsing the discharge and/or using larger targets, as is shown in the papers 9–17.…”

“…Powder targets allow a one magnetron geometry, as well as a high degree of flexibility due to the relative ease with which the target composition can be changed. The success of this combination for loosely packed powder targets has been demonstrated by several groups 9–17.…”