Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

DS: Dünne Schichten

DS 21: Laser and plasma processes

DS 21.6: Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 17:45–18:00, GER 37

The effect of target aging on the structure formation of Zinc oxide during reactive sputtering — •Dominik Koehl, Daniel Severin, Oliver Kappertz, Andreas Pflug, and Matthias Wuttig — I. Institute of Physics (1A), Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany

We present a comparative study of reactively sputtered Zinc oxide films deposited using (a) a new metallic Zn target and (b) an old one with a pronounced erosion trace. Depending on the shape of the target surface there are remarkable differences in the film structure at different substrate positions. Our findings can be attributed to the influence of the inhomogeneous bombardment of the substrate surface by fast negatively charged oxygen ions. These ions are created at the poisoned/oxidized fraction of the target and accelerated towards the substrate. We show that the trajectory of these ions strongly depends on the shape of the target surface, as the electric field above the target is altered by the erosion trace. Hence, the spatial distribution of the ion bombardment depends on the geometry of the erosion trace and therefore on the age of the target.