Low-pressure magnetron sputtering

The paper gives a short survey of the present state of art in low-pressure sputtering and self-sputtering. It shows main advantages of low pressure sputtering, particularly new physical conditions, i.e. (i) collisionless sight-of-line deposition process; (ii) assistance of fast neutrals in the film growth; and (iii) formation of films from ionised coating material and in the absence of an inert sputtering gas in the case of self-sputtering, under which novel materials with new physical properties can be formed. Principles of low-pressure sputtering are outlined. It is shown that there are two basic ways how to realise the low-pressure sputtering: (i) an improvement of plasma confinement in the sputtering discharge; and (ii) an additional ionisation of the working atmosphere. Also, sputtering systems used for low-pressure sputtering, including that recently developed, are discussed in detail. A special attention is devoted to the magnetron with a grooved target and the magnetron enhanced with rf and microwave magnetoactive plasma. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.