Secondary Plasma Sources for Ionized Physical Vapor Deposition
The helicon antenna sits remotely outside the vacuum system, so all shadowing and contamination problems which the other two sources exhibit are eliminated. Ionization fractions to the substrate of 51 +/- 10% with a deposition rate of 847 +/- 42 A/min. are found. Without the antenna, the ionization fraction is 30 +/- 6% and the deposition rate is 815 +/- 41 A/min. This remote source is envisioned to sit six or more around a sputtering chamber, which can help control uniformity while increasing the ionization further. Since an increase of 20% in the ionization fraction is achieved with only one antenna, and there is no threat of contamination inside the vacuum chamber, the helicon source is concluded to have the highest potential of these three secondary sources in an industrial IPVD application.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign