I am confused with the influence of Ar flow on sputter deposition. I am thinking that the Ar flow rate doesn't have any influence on the deposition rate and it is completely dependent on the pressure. I have seen some articles where they say it has an influence on the microstructure but those articles doesn't explain how. Can anyone explain the influence of Ar flow rate on deposition?
Thanks,
Balasubramanian Sundarapandian
Higher flow rate leads to higher pressure.
Higher pressure leads to less energy of the particles deposited at the substrate.
Less particle energy gives less denser films: at very high sputtering pressure the structure is more like evaporated films .
Generally, the gas flow rates have an effect on the thin film growth, grain size, crystal orientation and chemical state. The crystal orientation you can be checked by the XRD.
I recommend reading this paper showing the effect of the influence of argon gas flow on the microstructure, surface morphological behaviour, and the mechanical and electrical properties of sputtered titanium nitride thin films.
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Physics volume 7, Article number: 37 (2013)
This has always baffled me since forever. I only have one possible mechanism and that is increasing creation of dusty plasma as flow rates are reduced. That means you get deposition of clusters rather than atoms and that changes the growth process drastically ? Especially if the cluster also contains oxygen atom from residual O2 gas?
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