Mechanism and characteristics of reactive magnetron sputtering

The development of modern engineering technology increasingly uses various compound films, which account for about 70% of all film materials. Various chemical vapor deposition or physical vapor deposition methods can be used to prepare compound films. In the past, most compound films were prepared by CVD methods. CVD technology has developed plasma enhanced CVD, metal organic compound CVD and other new processes. However, because the CVD method requires high temperature, the source of materials is limited, and some also have problems such as toxicity, corrosion, environmental pollution, and coating uniformity, which limit the preparation of compound films to a certain extent.

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The PVD method is used to prepare dielectric films and compound films. In addition to radio frequency sputtering, reactive sputtering can also be used. That is, in the sputtering coating process, some active reactive gases are artificially introduced to react with the sputtered target material to deposit on the substrate, and a thin film different from the target material can be obtained. For example, sputtering reaction in O2 to obtain oxides, N2 or NH3 to obtain nitrides, O2+N2 mixed gas to obtain oxynitrides, C2H2 or CH4 to obtain carbides, silanes to obtain silicides and Fluoride etc. are obtained from HF or CF4. At present, from the demand for large-scale production of compound films on an industrial scale, reactive magnetron sputtering deposition technology has obvious advantages.

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The process of reactive sputtering is shown below. Common reaction gases include oxygen, nitrogen, methane, acetylene, carbon monoxide, and the like. During the sputtering process, depending on the reaction gas pressure, the reaction process can occur on the substrate or on the cathode (migrate to the substrate as a compound after the reaction). When the pressure of the reaction gas is high, it may react on the cathode sputtering target and then migrate to the substrate in the form of a compound to form a film. Under normal circumstances, the pressure of reactive sputtering is relatively low, so the gas phase reaction is not significant, mainly manifested as a solid phase reaction on the surface of the substrate. Generally, the high current flowing in the plasma can effectively promote the decomposition, excitation and ionization process of the reaction gas molecules. In the reactive sputtering process, a strong particle stream composed of energy-carrying free atoms is generated, and the sputtered target atoms flow from the cathode target to the substrate, and form after overcoming the activation threshold energy of the film diffusion growth on the substrate Compound, the above is the main mechanism of reactive sputtering.

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Reactive magnetron sputtering means that reactant gas is supplied to react with sputtered particles during the sputtering process to generate compound films. It can supply reactant gas to react with the compound target while sputtering, or react with the reactant gas while sputtering a metal or alloy target to prepare a compound film with a predetermined chemical ratio. The characteristics of compound thin films prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering are:

① The target material (single-element target or multi-element target) and reactive gas used in reactive magnetron sputtering can easily obtain high purity, which is beneficial to the preparation of high-purity compound films.

② In reactive magnetron sputtering, by adjusting the deposition process parameters, it is possible to prepare chemically proportioned or non-chemically proportioned compound films, so as to achieve the purpose of adjusting the film characteristics by adjusting the film composition.

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③ In the process of reactive magnetron sputtering deposition, the temperature of the substrate is generally not too high. Moreover, the film forming process usually does not require high-temperature heating of the substrate, so there are fewer restrictions on the substrate material.

④ Reactive magnetron sputtering is suitable for the preparation of large-area uniform thin films, and can realize the industrialized production of single machine with an annual output of millions of square meters.

Founded in 2015,Zunhua Baorui Titanium Equipment Co.,Ltd. is a manufacturer specializing in pvd vacuum ion coating equipment. The company’s products mainly include large plate coating machine, large tube collating machine, tool coating machine and LOW-E glass production line. Mr.Wang baijiang ,general manager of the company ,has been engaged in vacuum coating industry for more than 30 years. He continuously improve production technology, improve product performance and devote himself to provide customers with better product experience and higher production efficiency.