Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T01:55:18.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reactive Magnetron Sputtering: In Situ Analyses of Particle Fluxes and Interactions with the Growth Surface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

J. R. Abelson ,
J. R. Doyle ,
L. Mandrell  and
N. Maley
J. R. Abelson
Affiliation:
Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Materials Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801
J. R. Doyle
Affiliation:
Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Materials Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801
L. Mandrell
Affiliation:
Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Materials Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801
N. Maley
Affiliation:
Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Materials Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801
Get access

Abstract

Reactive magnetron sputtering (RMS) is a versatile technique for the production of alloy thin film coatings such as hydrides, nitrides, oxides, etc. RMS provides control over (i) film stoichiometry, via the partial pressure of “reactive” gas (H2, N2, etc.) injected, and (ii) film microstructure, via the bombardment of the growing surface by fast neutral or accelerated ionic species. However, few details are known about the fluxes reaching the film surface, and their reactions with it.

This paper reports comprehensive measurements for the RMS growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). The analysis techniques are in situ double modulation mass spectroscopy, plasma probes, isotope replacement experiments, and Monte-Carlo simulations of sputtered particle transport. We determine (i) the composition, energy and angular distributions of the incident flux, (ii) the H coverage of the growing surface, and (iii) the release of H2 from the growing film. For conditions which produce electronic quality a-Si:H, the total H flux arriving at the substrate varies between 0.5–2 times the depositing Si flux; about half of the H flux reflects. The growth surface has excess H varying between 0.5–2 × 1015/cm2, and this surface H coverage is linearly related to the bulk H incorporation. We also find evidence that film density varies with the energy of the arriving sputtered Si atoms.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 268: Symposium K – Materials Modification by Energetic Atoms and Ions , 1992 , 83
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Thornton, J. A., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A4(6), 3059, (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Gallagher, A., J. Appl. Phys. 63, 2406 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Moustakas, T., in Semiconductors and Semimetals Vol. 21A, ed. Pankove, J. (Academic Press, New York, 1984) pp. 55–82.Google Scholar
4. Thompson, M. J., in The Physics of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon I, ed. Joannopoulos, J. D. and Lucovsky, G. (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1984), pp. 119–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Pinarbasi, M., Maley, N., Myers, A., and Abelson, J. R., Thin Solid Films 1in, 217 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Myers, A. M., Ruzic, D. N., Powell, R., Maley, N., Pratt, D., Greene, J. E., and Abelson, J. R., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A8(3), 1668, (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Myers, A. M., Ruzic, D. N., Maley, N., Doyle, J., and Abelson, J. R. in Amorphous Silicon Technology - 1990, ed. Madan, A. et al. (MRS Proc., 192, Pittsburg PA 1990), p. 595.Google Scholar
8. Myers, A. M., “Characterization of the Growth Flux During the Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon by DC Magnetron Reactive Sputtering,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois (1991).Google Scholar
9. Myers, A., Doyle, J. R., Abelson, J. R. and Ruzic, D. N., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A9(3), 614, (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. Abelson, J. R., Doyle, J., Mandrell, L., Myers, A. M., and Maley, N., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A8(3), 1364, (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. Doyle, J. R. and Abelson, J. R., in preparation.Google Scholar
12. Lin, G. H., Doyle, J. R., He, M., and Gallagher, A., J. Appl. Phys. 64(1), 188, (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13. Veprek, S., Sarott, F.-A., Rambert, S., and Taglauer, E., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A7(4), 2614, (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Yehoda, J. E. et al., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. A8, 1631 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar