I deposited an alloy for 30 minutes using the AJA Sputtering system. The alloy consists of Tantalum Carbide (TaC) doped with Cu. The Tantalum Carbide (TaC) was prepared by the RF gun and Copper by the DC gun on the silicon wafer. After sputtering, I checked the elemental composition with SEM-EDX, which shows that the composite has a large amount of oxygen.
What could be the source of oxygen?
Is there a way to remove or reduce the oxygen from the composition?
Well, oxygen enters sputtered films usually via the chamber residual gases.
- What is your base pressure in your chamber?
- Does your chamber have a baking system?
- Can you measure the residual gas levels by a residual gas analyzer and is it applicable for a helium leak search?
- Does your chamber have an airlock system or do you put in substrates directly?
IN accordance with the previous reply, definitely the following reasons can be considered.
1) sputtering gas purity.
2) base pressured achieved should be low before letting-in sputtering gas.
3) Having a Liquid nitrogen trap helps
4) Targets should be sputtered cleaned.
5) we used to sputter Ti on dummy substrate shield, and achieve a very low base pressure, and also use an inline inert gas purifier, and obtain a pure bluish plasma especially during the sputtering of Cu.
If your plasma color is reddish yellow then definitely have oxygen contamination in your sputtering gas.
Try to check some of these.
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