Cathodic arc deposition of copper oxide thin films

Abstract

Black CuO films are used for improVed radiation cooling of, e.g., an RF kicker at the Advanced Light Source of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The films are required to be transparent to RF fields particularly in the range 1-1.25 GHz, UHV compatible, and very adhesive even after a number of baking cycles. Usual techniques such as wet-chemical coating do not fulfill the requirements for UHV compatibility. A cathodic arc plasma source with a copper cathode was operated in an oxygen atmosphere to form CuO films on the substrate which was either at the same time the anode or was mounted on a substrate holder. The films are single-phase polycrystalline CuO. They are slightly oxygen rich, adhere very well (pull strength exceeding 85 MPa) and fulfill all UHV requirements. The deposition method is very efficient, and large workpieces up to a surface area of 5000 cm 2 have been coated.

Transport efficiency of vacuum arc plasma in a curved magnetic filter

“…Similar plasma hardware is also used for beam-line metal ion implantation as well as for plasma immersion ion implantation ͑PIII͒. [3][4][5][6][7][8] However, a negative feature of the use of this metal plasma formation process is the generation of "macro-particles" from the cathode-roughly micron-size droplets of cathode debris-that can act as a particulate contamination to the plasma stream. Even though the technique has found many applications in metallurgical and tribological applications, the presence of macroparticles has hindered the use of the method in more demanding areas such as microelectronics and optoelectronics.…”

Plasma distribution of cathodic arc deposition systems

“…1,2 Cathodic arc plasma sources of various designs can be operated in vacuum for the deposition of metal films, 3 films of amorphous hard carbon 4-11 or amorphous semiconductors, 12 and in a gaseous atmosphere to form metal oxide [13][14][15][16] or metal nitride thin films. 14,[17][18][19][20] Cathodic arc deposition is a high rate deposition method because the cathodic arc discharge which is used to transform the cathode material into the plasma state is typically a highcurrent discharge of 100 to several hundred amperes, and the ion current, which determines the amount of metal plasma available for deposition, is around 10% of the arc current.…”

Some Applications of Cathodic Arc Coatings

“…The efficiency of the radiative energy transfer depends on the spectral emissivity, or how ''black'' the surface is. For a specialty application, the cooling of radio-frequency (RF) accelerator components in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV), the surface of aluminum ''kickers'' was coated by high-emissivity CuO, which is UHV compatible, black in the infrared, and transparent to the RF fields [119].…”