New Developments in the Manufacturing of Thermal Sprayed Cylindrical Targets

摘要

Magnetron sputter deposition has become an established technique in the coating industry. With the growing interest in vacuum coating by magnetron sputtering, the world of target manufacturing is expanding accordingly. Thermal spray technology offers a broad range of capabilities to meet the challenging demands of sputtering targets: nearly all materials can be sprayed, from low-melting point metals to high-melting point ceramics; doped materials can be produced in both stoichiometric as well as non-stoichiometric compositions without phase diagram constraints. Long life (dog-bone shaped) targets are easily produced, while the technology offers controllability of microstructural characteristics (grain morphology) and physical properties (density) of the sputtering materials. In the framework of a continuous strive to improve the quality and extend the product range, advances in sputtering target developments for low-melting point materials have been realized. In this paper the latest developments as well as the sputter behavior of Sn targets are presented. With an enhanced production technique, density can be increased from 90% to 99%. A combination of the advantages of thermal spraying and the interesting properties of high-density structures may be achieved in this way. Furthermore, the grain morphology of the target material is tunable from completely random to preferred orientations.