Search results for "sputtering"

Effect of space charge on the negative oxygen flux during reactive sputtering

2017

Negative ions often play a distinctive role in the phase formation during reactive sputter deposition. The path of these high energetic ions is often assumed to be straight. In this paper, it is shown that in the context of reactive magnetron sputtering space charge effects are decisive for the energetic negative ion trajectories. To investigate the effect of space charge spreading, reactive magnetron sputter experiments were performed in compound mode with target materials that are expected to have a high secondary ion emission yield (MgO and CeO2). By the combination of energy flux measurements, and simulations, a quantitative value for the negative oxygen ion yield can be derived.

Amorphous ultra-wide bandgap ZnOx thin films deposited at cryogenic temperatures

2020

Crystalline wurtzite zinc oxide (w-ZnO) can be used as a wide band gap semiconductor for light emitting devices and for transparent or high temperature electronics. The use of amorphous zinc oxide (a-ZnO) can be an advantage in these applications. In this paper we report on X-ray amorphous a-ZnOx thin films (~500 nm) deposited at cryogenic temperatures by reactive magnetron sputtering. The substrates were cooled by a nitrogen flow through the copper substrate holder during the deposition. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, infrared, UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopies, and ellipsometry. The a-ZnOx films on glass and Ti substrates were obtained at the substrate holder temp…

2018

CrN thin films with an N/Cr ratio of 95% were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering onto (0 0 0 1) sapphire substrates. X-ray diffraction and pole figure texture analysis show CrN (1 1 1) epitaxial growth in a twin domain fashion. By changing the nitrogen versus argon gas flow mixture and the deposition temperature, thin films with different surface morphologies ranging from grainy rough textures to flat and smooth films were prepared. These parameters can also affect the CrN x system, with the film compound changing between semiconducting CrN and metallic Cr2N through the regulation of the nitrogen content of the gas flow and the deposition temperature at a constant deposition pressur…

Hole localization in thermoelectric half-Heusler (Zr0.5Hf0.5)Co(Sb1−xSn ) thin films

2019

Abstract The (Ti, Zr, Hf)Co(Sb 1 − x Snx) material class has recently come into focus as an attractive p-type high-temperature thermoelectric material. This study experimentally demonstrates that homogeneous, highly textured (Zr0.5Hf0.5)Co(Sb 1 − x Snx) thin films can be grown on single crystalline MgO. By varying the sputter power, samples with both positive and negative Seebeck coefficient can be grown. The underlying reason for the sign change is the segregation of Sn nano-inclusions, which lower the effective doping of the half-Heusler matrix. Similarly the Hall constant also switches sign at low temperatures, which is modeled assuming semi-metal behavior and low temperature hole locali…

Experimental evidence on photo-assisted O− ion production from Al2O3 cathode in cesium sputter negative ion source

2020

The production of negative ions in cesium sputter ion sources is generally considered to be a pure surface process. It has been recently proposed that ion pair production could explain the higher-than-expected beam currents extracted from these ion sources, therefore opening the door for laser-assisted enhancement of the negative ion yield. We have tested this hypothesis by measuring the effect of various pulsed diode lasers on the O − beam current produced from Al 2O 3 cathode of a cesium sputter ion source. It is expected that the ion pair production of O − requires populating the 5d electronic states of neutral cesium, thus implying that the process should be provoked only with specific …

Operating a cesium sputter source in a pulsed mode

2020

A scheme is presented for pulsing of a cesium sputter negative ion source by periodically switching on and off the high voltage driving the sputtering process. We demonstrate how the pulsed ion beam can be used in combination with a pulsed laser (6 ns pulse length) that has a 10 Hz repetition rate to study the photodetachment process, where a negative ion is neutralized due to the absorption of a photon. In such experiments, where the ion beam is used only for a small fraction of the time, we show that the pulsed mode operation can increase the lifetime of a cathode by two orders of magnitude as compared with DC operation. We also investigate how the peak ion current compares with the ion c…

The effect of plasma instabilities on the background impurities in charge breeder ECRIS

2017

International audience; Experimental observations of plasma instabilities in the 14.5 GHz PHOENIX charge breeder ECRIS are summarized. It has been found that the injection of 133Cs+ or 85Rb+ into oxygen discharge of the CB-ECRIS can trigger electron cyclotron instabilities, which results to sputtering of the surfaces exposed to the plasma, followed by up to an order of magnitude increase of impurity currents in the extracted n+ charge state distribution. The transition from stable to unstable plasma regime is caused by gradual accumulation and ionization of Cs/Rb altering the discharge parameters in 10 - 100 ms time scale, not by a prompt interaction between the incident ion beam and the EC…

Growth of WC–Cr–N and WC–Al–N coatings in a RF-magnetron sputtering process

2013

Tungsten carbide-based coatings have been used in a wide variety of industrial applications such as high speed cutting tools, extrusion dies, drills, aerospace industries, and more. A few reports on ternary and quaternary coatings of WC with other elements indicate good prospects for these material systems. The present study focuses on the formation of quaternary WCeCreN and WCeAleN coatings during the simultaneous reactive RF-magnetron sputtering of tungsten carbide and Al or Cr targets in an argon/nitrogen gas mixture. The resulting coatings, with thicknesses of 3.5 mme8.2 mm, were characterized by using several analytical techniques including X-ray diffraction, SEM/EDS, AFM, and X-ray ph…

Rhodamine (B) photocatalysis under solar light on high crystalline ZnO films grown by home-made DC sputtering

2018

Abstract ZnO thin films were deposited by home-made DC sputtering of zinc target under mixed gases (Argon, Oxygen) plasma on glass substrates. Films were deposited by varying oxygen partial pressure (PO2) from 0.09 to 1.3 mbar in the deposition chamber, at a fixed substrate temperature of 100 °C. The samples were characterized by photoluminescence (PL), X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical transmissions (UV–vis), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrical (Hall effect) measurements. The results indicate that by varying the oxygen pressure in the deposition chamber, the films show a precise and well defined photoluminescence emissions for each range of pressure covering almost the entire …

Thermal stability of magnetic characteristics of Co/Ag/Fe and Co/Ag/Fe20Ni80 spin-valve structures

2017

Abstract We investigated the thermal stability of magnetic characteristics of Co/Ag/Fe and Co/Ag/Fe 20 Ni 80 spin-valve structures. Thin film systems were obtained with the help of sputtering method. For the first type of systems two particular thicknesses ( d ML  = 3 and 20 nm) and different disposition of magnetic layers (ML) were used. For the second type different thickness of Ag ( d NML ) spacer layer was used. The research of the crystal structure was performed with the transmission electron microscope. The results demonstrate that every investigated as-deposited sample does not include solid solutions, intermetallic compounds or impurities. It has been found that among the spin-valve…