Gayatri Rane, Philipp Dürrenfeld, Uwe Krause, Advanced Energy Industries, Karlstein am Main, Germany
Over the past years, increased understanding of arc behaviour during thin film deposition processes has led to improvements in plasma power supply design. This has helped significantly minimize negative effects related to arcing. In this contribution, we demonstrate the effect of different arc handling parameters available at the power supplies that can be used to tailor arcing characteristics during sputtering of insulating films. We show the effect of arc management parameters on arc energies, backed by experimental studies on silicon oxide and aluminium oxide processes performed in an industrial drum coater.
To deposit these insulating materials, different power delivery modes are available to a user such as dual magnetron bipolar mode (BP) and dynamic reverse pulsing mode (DRP). We discuss the differences between these two modes, provide an in-depth statistical study to showcase the effect of pulsing frequency on these modes, and compare them in terms of arc rates and energies.