Texture development in silver films deposited by ionised magnetron sputter deposition

Texture development of silver films made by ionised magnetron sputter deposition (LMSD) on a naturally oxidised Si(001) substrate has been studied. The deposition technique used an r.f. coil to generate a high-density induction plasma confined close to the substrate. A sufficient ion flux, containing ions of the sputtering gas and the depositing species, can easily be drawn to the substrate with a substrate bias. Therefore, this process is able to provide controllable energetic ion bombardment, in terms of both flux (by r.f. power) and energy (by substrate bias). Ion bombardment induced (111) texture of silver films was characterised using the X-ray diffraction (XRD) method. The texture: was investigated as a function of the operational parameters of IMSD, including gas pressure, ion Aux, ion incident energy and ionisation fraction of depositing species. It was found that the texture was sensitive to the energy per deposited atom, which was the product of the normalised ion flux (total ion flux/total depositing flux) and incident energy. By the precise control of ion bombardment during film growth, a method to control film texture using the IMSD technique is presented. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.