Nick Franzer1,2, Anthony Cicero2
1Kurt J. Lesker Company, Pittsburgh, PA
2KDF Technologies, Rockleigh, NJ
We explored leveraging a Plasma Emission Monitor (PEM) to effectively develop a reactive titanium nitride sputtering process in a production batch-coating PVD system. It is essential for the system to have optical sensors precisely placed to view the plasma, optimally designed gas rings to inject reactive gas into the sputter plasma, and properly located MFCs to adjust reactive gas flow rates promptly. The PEM was set to track the relative intensity of the Ti/Ar emission spectra from the plasma, which decreases as the nitrogen gas ratio increases. The reactive gas flow was controlled by the PEM to maintain an emission intensity setpoint, which was found to correlate to the deposition rate and nitrogen concentration in the TiN films. This allowed us to rapidly develop a process to deposit TiN films with a resistivity < 150 µohm-cm on unheated substrates. Once the process was developed, the PEM allowed for repeatable film deposition of similar quality. Overall, the PEM is a great solution for controlling and developing reactive sputtering processes.