Mike Simmons, Robert Malay, Intellivation LLC, Loveland, CO
Magnetic thin films serve important functions in applications such as data storage, wearable electronics, EMI shielding, and microwave devices. High magnetic permeability materials are particularly useful in many of these technologies but producing these by magnetron sputtering presents challenges due to shunting of the magnetic fields through the target material. This leads to the use of thinner targets and to poor utilization of the target material, which results in high costs to produce the thin film products due to high input costs and the need for frequent sputter target changes. Recent innovations in magnetron design address these challenges by providing for increased magnetic field strength in the magnet bar and improved sputter target utilization for magnetic sputter targets. In addition, this technology is useful when producing non-magnetic thin film materials which benefit from the low sputter target voltage afforded by the high strength magnetic field, such as ITO. This presentation will discuss various applications and coatings using these new magnetic arrays.