Wüest M. 51 Wykes M. 82 Yamaguchi M. 17 Ybarra G. 129 Yubero F ...

JUNE 27 TUESDAY MORNING
JS1-TuM-INV-1 REACTIVE SPUTTERING OF METAL OXIDES AND NI-
TRIDES FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS. Victor Bellido-González, Benoit Daniel,
Sarah Powell GENCOA, Physics Road, Liverpool L24 9HP (UK). E-mail: victor@gencoa.com
Magnetron sputtering has become one of the key industrial vacuum coating technologies in regards
to many of today’s applications. In magnetron sputtering, a material called target (e.g. Ti),
suffers ion bombardment by ions of a mainly inert gas (e.g. Argon) and in that bombardment material
is removed and transported onto a desired surface to be coated. The plasma trap around that
target is based on a electric-magnetic cross field (ExB). Some of these processes also involve the
reaction between the element or elements of the target material and a gas. That reaction produced
a coating of very different nature to the target material itself and the process is called reactive
magnetron sputtering. Two groups of these reactive gases are Nitrogen which will give as a result
a nitride of the elements of the target (e.g. TiN) and Oxygen which will give as a result an
oxide of the elements of the target (e.g. TiOx). In some cases the target itself is of a oxide or nitride
nature and generally some sort of degree of reactive sputtering is maintained in order to taylor
specific coating properties (e.g. Ito target sputtering in atmospheres containing O 2 or H 2 ). In
this presentation some of the current issues in the control of such processes will be exposed. Also
practical applications of oxides and nitrides will be explained based on our industrial experience.
These will include multilayer oxides for optical coatings, transparent conductive oxides for
photovoltaic and display technology, oxides for scratch resistance technology, nitrides for decorative
and hard coat applications, solar-thermal absorbers, etc. A short comparison with some
other technologies such as cathodic arc will be exposed as these technologies can be sometimes
found competing on a similar ground of applications.
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