Is sputtering physical vapor deposition?

Sputtering is a Physical Vapor Deposition vacuum process used to deposit very thin films onto a substrate for a wide variety of commercial and scientific purposes. Sputtering occurs when an ionized gas molecule is used to displace atoms of a specific material.

Why is sputtering more useful for alloy deposition?

Since the sputtering mechanism has a mechanical nature, refractory materials can be easily deposited at temperatures well below their melting point. In addition, it is very useful for the deposition of alloys and compounds, because the resulting film composition, generally, matches that of the source material.

What is meant by sputtering process?

The sputtering process occurs when the target material is bombarded with the sputtering gas and the resulting energy transfer causes target particles to escape, travel and deposit on the substrate as a film. For the sputtering process to produce an effective coating, a number of criteria must be met.

What are the steps involved in the sputtering process?

Basically the steps of sputtering process are the following: (i) the neutral gas is ionized by a external power supply, producing a glow discharge or plasma; (ii) a source (the cathode, also called the target) is bombarded in high vacuum by gas ions due to the potential drop acceleration in the cathode sheath; (iii) …

What is the difference between sputter deposition and sputter etching?

Sputter etching is essentially RIE without reactive ions. The systems used are very similar in principle to sputtering deposition systems. The big difference is that substrate is now subjected to the ion bombardment instead of the material target used in sputter deposition.

What is the difference between sputtering and evaporation?

PVD can occur through sputtering (magnetron or ion beam), which utilizes energetic ions colliding with a target to eject (or sputter) target material, or evaporation (thermal resistive and e-beam), which relies on heating a solid source material past its vaporization temperature.

Why is sputtering important?

Sputter deposition is widely used to deposit thin film metallization on semiconductor material, coatings on architectural glass, and reflective coatings on compact discs (CDs), and for magnetic films, dry film lubricants, hard coatings (tools, engine parts), and decorative coatings.

What are the advantages of sputtering process?

Like other physical vapor deposition techniques, ion beam sputtering provides advantages such as deposition rate, uniformity, composition, thickness control, adhesion, and material properties.

Why is sputtering used?

Sputtering is used extensively in the semiconductor industry to deposit thin films of various materials in integrated circuit processing. Thin antireflection coatings on glass for optical applications are also deposited by sputtering.

Why argon is used in sputtering?

Argon is the process gas of choice for most magnetron sputtering applications due to its large atomic mass, inert chemistry, and relatively low cost.

Which is advantage of sputtering?

An important advantage of sputter deposition is that even materials with very high melting points are easily sputtered while evaporation of these materials in a resistance evaporator or Knudsen cell is problematic or impossible. Sputter deposited films have a composition close to that of the source material.

What is the advantage of sputtering?