Göttingen 2025 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik
P 19: Low Pressure Plasmas and their Applications II
P 19.1: Invited Talk
Thursday, April 3, 2025, 11:00–11:30, ZHG006
A plasma process model for high power impulse magnetron sputtering discharges — •Martin Rudolph1, Daniel Lundin2, and Jon Tomas Gudmundsson3,4 — 1Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM), Leipzig, Germany — 2Plasma and Coatings Physics Divsion, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden — 3Science Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland — 4Division of Space and Plasma Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
High-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) processes are widely used for thin-film deposition. They rely on pulsed high discharge currents to generate a dense plasma that promotes the ionization of sputtered atoms. The ionization region model (IRM) is a semi-empirical model of the HiPIMS process. Its advantage is its computational speed, a critical factor for a process model designed to explore the vast parameter space in HiPIMS. Using the IRM, the influence of external discharge parameters on relevant internal plasma parameters can be disentangled. In this contribution, we show how the electron density in the ionization region scales with the peak discharge current, while the electron temperature scales with the sputter yield of the target material. A fraction of the ionized sputtered atoms is drawn back to the target due to its negative voltage, resulting in their loss from the deposition process. Consequently, a higher ionization of sputtered species is inherently linked to a reduction in the deposition rate. We demonstrate how these two parameters can be optimized when developing a HiPIMS process.
Keywords: Magnetron sputtering; HiPIMS; 0D modelling; process development