Improvement of coating deposition and target erosion uniformity in rotating cylindrical magnetrons

摘要

Cylindrical magnetrons with rotating cathodes have found wide application in the thin-film coating deposition technologies owing to a higher degree of the target utilization and used power level as compared with planar magnetrons. The aim of this work was to increase the efficiency of cylindrical magnetrons. It is known that the region of uniform coatings deposition with extended magnetrons is essentially lower than the sputtered cathode length. The actual achievable cathode utilization degree is limited, with the regions at cathode ends having a higher wear rate than the central part. To eliminate these shortcomings, experiments were carried out on the creation of a magnetic system to allow an increase of the coating deposition uniformity and target utilization. Resulting from the investigations that were carried out, a magnetic system design with an increased magnetic field at its ends (by 5-15%) and modified turn-around parts has been developed. This magnetic system design allows extending the coating deposition region with the uniformity of +/-1% by 12.5 cm and completely eliminating accelerated erosion of the end cathode parts. The obtained results are promising for use in technologies of deposition of thin-film coatings with a high degree of uniformity (no worse than +/-1%) onto large-area substrates. [References: 9]