This course covers topics of practical importance to those who presently use sputtering or who would benefit from an introduction to the technology. The emphasis is on developing an understanding of the underlying science and the factors that influence product throughput, coating quality and process robustness and reliability. Relationships between the sputtering conditions and important film properties - such as uniformity, microstructure, composition, stress, and adhesion - are discussed. Applications in the microelectronics and photonics industries are used to illustrate important features of the technology. The emphasis is on process and hardware considerations rather than device design or the detailed material properties of the coatings. No prior background in sputtering is needed.
Course Outline:
- Introduction and examples of sputtered coatings
- Coating nucleation and growth
- Overview of sputtering
- The vacuum environment
- Plasmas, plasma characteristics and magnetron sputtering
- Magnetron cathode designs
- Sputter yields and the distribution of sputtered atoms
- Collimated and ionized magnetron sputtering for high aspect ratio features
- Sputtering electrically insulating materials: M
- RF sputtering
- Ion beam sputtering
- Reactive sputtering - Stress in sputtered coatings
- Sputtering equipment for microelectronic and photonic applications