Qi Hua Fan¹, David Stevenson^2
1Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
²Ampres, Inc., Ypsilanti, MI
Low-temperature deposition of thin films is critical to many applications that involve heat-sensitive materials or have thermal budget limitations. This work reports the characteristics of a broad beam plasma source that can enhance thin film growth and crystallization at low temperatures. This plasma source can produce a single beam of ions with independently controllable energy and flux density. The ion energy can be adjusted to any value in the range of 10-150 eV to enable effective energy transfer to a specific film. As a result, polycrystalline thin films with dense morphology and smooth surfaces can be grown at temperatures far below the phase equilibrium condition. Various thin films have been produced using the beam plasma source enhanced sputtering, demonstrating the unique advantages of this new growth paradigm. A few examples include ultra-thin silver films (<7 nm), (0002) oriented AlN piezoelectric thin films, high refractive index Nb₂O₅ thin films, and SiC thin films. The broad beam plasma source can be scaled to any length for large-area inline coatings.