Is your max. chamber base pressure 10^-6 torr. ? What is your working pressure, Ar flow rate and power (RF or DC)?..With my experience you can obtain good quality films at 3 mTorr. working pressuring and Ar flow rate 20 SCCM. You can optimize your deposition rates by varying the power while keeping your working pressure and flow rate constant. 

Good luck with your sputter deposition !!

Anandakumar sir,

yes sir optimum 10^-6 torr 

actually I am using 1.34mm thickness 1'inch diameter cobalt, though I am getting plasma at 10^-1 to 10^-3 torr range pressure,at 30 sccm gas flow, 100 watt also ,no deposition happening, substrate target distance also changed (5,6,6.5 cm).

more parameters changed but no deposition.

thank u sir

Are you depositing at any angle or normal incident ? is there any plasma bent towards your chamber wall ? Do you have any substrate bias ? if not..my suggestion is try to reduce your gas flow up to 15 SCCM. By the way what is your power source RF or DC ?

Also check your magnetron if your magnetic field is so strong it is hard to deposit.. so try to remove middle magnets in the magnetron (to reduce field strength). I guess that would help for your deposition. 

angle of deposition 60degree, idont see plasma bending,may be the strong magnetic field is the reason,

i will try to reduce the gas flow it mat give proper result.

both dc and rf i have tried, but dc has some problem within,so that arch appears at some points of operation.

i will try according to your suggestion sir.

thank u

I sputter Ni routinely.  Initially I had a problem, did not see any NI film depositions.

I am using rf diode/magnetron and n more problems now.

1) Initially I found the target surface is oxidised, and I could get thin transparent layers of probably NiO.

   Slowly after some sputtering runs, I started getting metallic films of Ni.

   this indicated to me that I have skimmed off all the oxide layer on my Ni target.

   Moreover I have started using much purer Argon gas.

---------------------------

Whenever I use a magnetron, I try to see that I use Nickel foils. With magnetic targets the thinner the target is (preferably a foil), you can do magnetron sputtering.

I have a feeling your cobalt target surface is oxidised. Keep on sputtering your target for a number of times in argon sputtering gas. You should be able to see cobalt film sputtering.

I would prefer rf, because it is more effective in removing out oxide layers on the Co target surface.

Good luck. you will be successfull. Whenever you use rf sputtering, you must see that your rf power is well coupled, and see a good self dc bias on the target.

I hope your sputtering system has the provision to measure self dc bais on the target. This reading indicates, the effectiveness of the sputtering when rf is used.

K. Sreenivas

thank you K.Sreenivaas Sir, ur explanation gave me some idea,I will utiise the theme here.

i have also facing the same problem when deposit cobalt by Dc Magnetron sputtering.so it is ok that i put a piece of certain material behind the target. which reduce the magnetic field effect nad the film is deposit.

Dear Zeeshan Mustafa, keep same size same dimension iron piece in place of the central magnet if you have to diminish the magnetic field.

ok. but i am facing the problem when i use temperature. otherwise my film is deposit at room temperature.it has no problem.

Use temperature means substrate temperature or anything else you are talking about.

substrate temperature

It should be sputtered but the films may be having gradient I think. @zeeshan

I am facing a similar problem right now.

We got a new 3" Co target of 0.0625" thickness and tried to sputter it on rf cathode several times.

Power was 260 W, we tried Ar flow of 25sccm and 50sccm.

Our starting pressure was around 5*10^-6 Torr.

We pre sputtered the target for 10 minutes before and then sputtered for 30 minutes.

We can't use Bias.

Our result is a very thin, transparent layer instead of a 150nm thickness that we expected.

Do you know what the problem could be? is the target still oxidized?

Do we need to change the Ar flow?

Thanks in advance

Mr. Jan Lieben,

Could you say what is the type of magnetron? is it having a central magnet piece? If possible remove that central piece to get best use of Co target.

Mr. Parida,

as it's not my sputter plant, I can not remove the central piece or make any mechanical changes. I can only change the parameters..

Thanks

Is there any way to reduce that magnetic field. Are they permanent magnets or electromagnets? If electromagnet reduce the flux by decreasing the current if permanent ask them to help it to be minimized otherwise.

i will try it, thank you