Characterization of transport of titanium neutral atoms sputtered in Ar and Ar/N 2 HIPIMS discharges

International audienceIn this work we report on the investigation of the transport behavior of Ti neutral atoms sputtered in a reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering device used for TiN coating deposition. The time-resolved tunable diode laser induced fluorescence (TR-TDLIF), previously developed to study the transport of tungsten atoms, was improved to measure Ti neutral atom velocity distribution functions. We find that the TR-TDLIF signal has to be fitted using three Gaussian distributions, corresponding to the energetic, thermalized, and quasi-thermalized (atoms with non-zero mean velocity) atom populations. The ability to distinguish populations of atoms and to determine their corresponding deposited flux and energy may be of great interest to control film properties as desired for targeted applications. From the fitting, the vapor transport parameters (flux and energy) are calculated and studied as a function of distance from the target, pressure, and percentage of nitrogen in an Ar/N2 gas mixture. The study focuses on the effect of added nitrogen on the transport of sputtered atoms

Étude de l’interaction plasma-eau en régime de décharge nanoseconde en condition atmosphérique

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On the anisotropy and thermalization of the metal sputtered atoms in a low-pressure magnetron discharge

Space-resolved velocity distributions of titanium atoms sputtered in a direct-current (dc) magnetron discharge working at low pressure (0.4 Pa) were investigated using the laser-diode–induced fluorescence technique. A blue-light laser diode, covering the Ti $3d^{2}4s^{2}$-$3d^{2}(^{3}F)4s4p(^{1}P^{0})$ transition $\lambda_{0}$=398.289 nm, was used to excite neutral Ti atoms and to measure their Doppler absorption profile through the induced fluorescence signal. Taking advantage of the very narrow laser linewidth, energetic and thermalized atoms can be clearly distinguished. Moreover, flux distributions of sputtered atoms along the laser direction were deduced and discussed