Mechanisms for compositional variations of coatings sputtered from a WS2 target

• Magnetron sputtering fromcompound targets is widely used for the deposition of compound films since it is easyto scale up and it exhibits a high reproducibility. Controlling film stoichiometry is crucial for obtaining filmswithdesired properties. However, the process is rather complex and sputtering from a compound target frequentlyresults in film compositions that deviate significantly from that of the target. This is due to a number of effectsrelated to the nature of the sputtering process which include preferential re-sputtering due to energetic particlebombardment at the substrate, different take-off angles, scattering in the gas phase, and different stickingcoefficients.In this work, we have investigated how sputtering from aWS2 target results in different film compositions as afunction of the position in the chamber, for different processing conditions. Hence, the films have not been characterizedwith respect to structural or morphological properties. A Monte-Carlo based software, accounting fordifferent take-off angles and scattering in the gas phase, was developed to simulate the compositional variationsat various positions in the chamber. Further, a number of experimentswere performed by varying the target voltage,process pressure, as well as the location of the substrate (on and off axis). Simulations and experiments revealsignificant compositional variations for different processing conditions. Experiments show that thesevariations are only slightly affected by the target voltage, while the most significant variations result from theprocessing pressure and position on the chamber. From the qualitatively good agreement between experimentsand simulations it is clear that gas phase scattering must be taken into account to explain the observed compositionaltrends, while the other effects are less important and sticking coefficients effectsmay even be negligible.It is therefore concluded that themajor effect responsible for the compositional variation of the film is the differentscattering behaviour of S andWin the gas phase.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Annan fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Other Physics Topics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Magnetron sputtering

gas phase scattering

deposition profile

Engineering Science with specialization in Electronics

Teknisk fysik med inriktning mot elektronik

Engineering Science with specialization in Materials Science

Teknisk fysik med inriktning mot materialvetenskap

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