Improvement of coating deposition and target erosion uniformity in rotating cylindrical magnetrons

Abstract

Cylindrical magnetrons with rotating cathodes have found wide application in the thin-film coating deposition technologies owing to a higher degree of the target utilization and used power level as compared with planar magnetrons. The aim of this work was to increase the efficiency of cylindrical magnetrons. It is known that the region of uniform coatings deposition with extended magnetrons is essentially lower than the sputtered cathode length. The actual achievable cathode utilization degree is limited, with the regions at cathode ends having a higher wear rate than the central part. To eliminate these shortcomings, experiments were carried out on the creation of a magnetic system to allow an increase of the coating deposition uniformity and target utilization. Resulting from the investigations that were carried out, a magnetic system design with an increased magnetic field at its ends~by 5-15%! and modified turn-around parts has been developed. This magnetic system design allows extending the coating deposition region with the uniformity of 61% by 12.5 cm and completely eliminating accelerated erosion of the end cathode parts. The obtained results are promising for use in technologies of deposition of thin-film coatings with a high degree of uniformity~no worse than 61%! onto large-area substrates.

A Cr Anti-Sticking Layer for Improving Mold Release Quality in Electrochemical Replication of PVC Optical Molds

“…The deposition at near room temperature can be realized by magnetron sputtering. Therefore, magnetron sputtering method was selected to deposit the antisticking layer of PVC mold in the current study [29,30]. In this study, the 3 nm thickness of Cr antisticking layer was fabricated by magnetron sputtering.…”

Recent progress in thin film processing by magnetron sputtering with plasma diagnostics

“…The modification of the planar magnetron sources for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of target utilization has been achieved by introducing a moving magnetic array beneath the target, which in some cases also allows the efficiency of target utilization to be increased by up to 80% [14,15]. On the other hand, cylindrical sputtering sources using a rotational target moving mechanism have allowed the target efficiency to be increased by up to 80% and this use of this procedure is growing in large area applications [16].…”