Dear Simeon,

Thank you for sharing this question with me.

Deposition is to condensate a material from a vapor or gas state on a substrate surface to form films of the deposited material on the substrate. Deposition of metals, semiconductors and insulators is one of the basic fabrication steps in electronic devices and integrated circuits.

There are two major deposition methods, the physical deposition and the chemical vapor deposition. In the chemical vapor deposition the deposited material results from chemical reaction of materials in the gas phase while in the physical deposition no such reaction is required. The deposited material is obtained directly.

There are two methods of physical deposition, the evaporation method and the cathode sputtering method. In the evaporation method the material in its solid form is evaporated by heating it and vapor is condensed on the cool surfaces including the target substrate.

In the cathode sputtering the material to be deposited called source is bombarded by highly accelerated ions of an inert gas like Argon. On bombarding the source with accelerated ions with sufficient energy, very fine particles of the source will be ejected from the surface forming dust like atmosphere.This dust diffuses in the sputtering chamber and condenses partly on the intended substrates forming the required film. This process runs in a stuttering machine which consists basically of an anode a cathode in a vacuum chamber. A low pressure inert gas is allowed to inter the chamber to form the accelerated ions. Since the accelerated ions flow towards the cathode then the source of the material is made to act as a cathode.

Therefore the name cathode sputtering as the dust of the material to be deposited comes out from the cathode because of the bombardment the positively charged inert gas ions.

YOU can find more details in the link: encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Cathode+Sputtering

Best regards.