Key features of this waveform are the voltage boost period following each polarity transition and fast current rise time due to that boost. Ideally, the boost voltage would be adjustable. It is expected that adjusting the boost voltage will enable some tuning of the film properties, since it will effectively allow tuning of ion energy within the process. Additionally, adjustable duty, the ratio...

Sustaining a plasma in a magnetron discharge requires energization of the plasma electrons. In this work, Ohmic heating of electrons outside the cathode sheath is demonstrated to be typically of the same order as sheath energization, and a simple physical explanation is given. We propose a generalized Thornton equation that includes both sheath energization and Ohmic heating of electrons. The s...

Magnetron sputtering is a widely used physical vapor deposition technique for deposition and formation of nanocatalyst thin films and clusters. Nevertheless, so far only few studies investigated this formation process at the fundamental level. We here review atomic scale molecular dynamics simulations aimed at elucidating the nanocatalyst growth process through magnetron sputtering. We first in...

Ti1-xAlxN coated tools are commonly used in high-speed machining, where the cutting edge of an end-mill or insert is exposed to temperatures up to 1100 °C. Here, we investigate the effect of Yttrium addition on the thermal stability of Ti1-xAlxN coatings. Reactive DC magnetron sputtering of powder metallurgically prepared Ti0.50Al0.50, Ti0.49Al0.49Y0.02, and Ti0.46Al0.46Y0.08 targets result in ...

The inner surface of the ring vacuum chambers of the US Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) will be coated with ~100 nm of Titanium Nitride (TiN). This is to minimize the secondary electron yield (SEY) from the chamber wall, and thus avoid the so-called e-p instability caused by electron multipacting as observed in a few high-intensity proton storage rings. Both DC sputtering and DCmagnetron sputte...

The present thesis addresses two research areas related to film growth in a highly ionized magnetron sputtering system: plasma characterization, and thin film growth and analysis. The deposition technique used is called high power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS). Characteristic for this technique are high energy pulses (a few Joules) of length 50-100 μs that are applied to the target (catho...

The deposition of highly adherent carbon nitride (CNx) films using a pretreatment with two high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) power supplies in a master-slave configuration is reviewed. SKF3 (AISI 52100) steel substrates were pretreated in the environment of a high ionized Cr+Ar plasma in order to sputter clean the surface and implant Cr metal ions. CNx films were subsequently dep...