Modeling and Control of Reactive Sputter Processes
Kontaktperson: Christian Wölfel
Zeitraum: seit 01.03.2015
Beschreibung: Modern industrial products are increasingly refined by thin layers, which enable physical features that thick layers cannot sufficiently provide. Examples of thin tfilm products include optical reflective layers, corrosion resistance layers, superconductive layers, hard coatings, magnetic coatings and integrated circuits. The technological processes for the generation of thin films require a vacuum in order to deposit solid components from a gas phase. Basically, there are two different process types in thin film technology:
- In Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) the material to be deposited is transported in a carrier gas, decays at the heated substrate area and build up a thin layer at the substrate. Weak point of this process type is the fact that the required precursor gases concerning metal or ceramic layers are often not realizable.
- The Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) based on the sputtering of atoms from a solid object, the target, relinquished chemical reactions and is, therefore, not subject to the above mentioned restriction. In Physical Vapour Deposition the material to be deposited is located in the target solid body. The target is bombarded by ions of a non reacting working gas, which is usually argon. The ion current on the target caused by a plasma discharge leads to the sputtering of atoms from the target and in consequence to a flow of atoms from the target surface to the substrate surface.
In addition, Physical Vapour Deposition can be enhanced by one or more reactive gases to deposit more complex stoichiometries. This process type, called Reactive Sputter Deposition (RSD), is currently object of a research collaborative by the Institute for Electrical Engineering and Plasma Technology, the Institute of Theoretical Electrical Engineering and the Institute of Automation and Computer Control of the Ruhr-University Bochum.