I am trying to sputter coat aluminum using Quorum technology sputter coater. The plasma discharge is visible but aluminum is not coating on the sample. Moreover, the target has visible sign of its consumption. The other targets like copper, gold, titanium are working fine. Please suggest the possible reasons.
Pls. check the sample position to the target as well as target material
The sample to target distance is the optimized distance by the company. Target material is high purity Al.
Do you use pure Ar for sputtering? If not, the problem can be in oxidation.
Denis Korneev The used argon is 99.995 % pure
@Thomas Breuer I used white paper as a sample and coated it with Al, there is no observed change in the color. Moreover, i checked the conductivity. The sputtering current used was 110 mA, 120 mA and 150 mA.
Thomas Breuer
Use of white paper was suggested by the company engineer. The sputter current value was selected higher than the company given value for Al. I will try to increase current and time. Moreover, I will do EDS of the sample.
Thomas Breuer
Thank you sir for your advice. We solved the issue and we sputter Al at 150 mA for 150 sec
Thomas Breuer
Sir, it was because of the target. First we bake the target but it didn't worked out. Then we plasma cleaned the target
Thomas Breuer
In the instrument the available parameters which we can vary directly is current and sputter time. We can set sputter current and time only.
Rajagopalan Pandey In instrument there is a option of cleaning for 60 sec, so I cleaned for 4-5 times
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