Martin Ondryáš, Jaroslav Hnilica, Peter Klein, Petr Vašina, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
The field of coating technologies is constantly evolving. Recently, there has been a shift in focus from creating coatings with a single superior property to combining multiple superior properties. This shift has led to an increased demand for higher ion bombardment during the deposition process. High power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) is a thin film deposition technique that offers a high ion metal flux fraction, which is crucial for controlling and enhancing thin film growth. However, the main drawback of the HiPIMS technique is its low deposition rate, compared to the direct current magnetron sputtering deposition. The aim of this study is to identify process parameters that achieve high metal ionization while maintaining a sufficiently high deposition rate. The study involved investigating the influence of pulse durations ranging from 10s to 100s of microseconds, different high power impulse magnetron sputtering generators, and target sizes covering lab-scale and semi-industrial scale. Two current densities were examined under three different working pressures. The quartz crystal microbalance was utilized to measure the combined flux of both metal atoms and metal ions. Additionally, the flux of metal atoms was specifically determined using a biased quartz crystal microbalance, allowing for the derivation of the ionized metal flux fraction. Moreover, the biased QCM was employed to measure the flux of argon ions. Direct current magnetron sputtering measurements were also carried out for comparison with the results obtained from high power impulse magnetron sputtering.