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2001
Conference Paper
Titel
Stationary reactive pulse magnetron sputtering of optical multilayers and gradient layers on 8" substrates
Abstract
The Double Ring Magnetron DRM 400 is designed for stationary deposition of thin films with high uniformity on eight inch substrates. The DRM combines two concentric discharges in one magnetron source. By superposition of film thickness distributions of the inner and the outer discharge uniform coating on a large substrate diameter is accomplished. Special features of the DRM 400 include electrical separate target regions and separately moveable magnet systems for good controllability of the process, two gas inlet systems for inert and reactive gas, integrated sensors for pressure and optical emission. Together with adapted control units, powering and process technology the Double Ring Magnetron can be flexibly used for stationary substrate coating in microelectronics, optics, recording media production, micro mechanics and sensor technology. Pulsed powering allows the long term stable reactive deposition of insulating compounds throughout the target life time. The obtained deposition rates in pulsed reactive sputtering are five to ten times higher compared to the conventional rf sputtering. Moreover unique materials such as compounds with multiple gas constituents (e. g. ternary compounds) or layers with changing composition (gradient layers) have been deposited. Deposition of oxynitride layers with a defined composition and refractive index will be reported. For AlO(x)N(y) and SiO(x)N(y) the refractive index could be continuously adjusted between the values of the pure oxides or nitrides, respectively. Furthermore gradient layers have been produced by changing the reactive gas flow ratio during deposition including the appropriate adaptations of the reactive working point. The changes in the microstructure clearly indicate the continuous transition between the oxide and the nitride.