Abstract
The main parameter, which determines the properties of the growing thin film, is energy delivered to the surface by impacting particles. In this paper, we concern with the energy distributions of ions in the magnetron discharge designated for the deposition of Ti layers.
The measurements were performed by means of a combined energy and mass analyzer. This device enables measurement of energy distributions of individual species.
It is well known that in magnetron sputtering different regimes of the discharge excitation can lead to substantial distinctions of the plasma parameters. Here we focused on the pulsed regime.
Energies of dominant ions 40Ar+ and 48Ti+ measured in time synchronization with voltage pulses on the cathode are reported. There is a significant abundance of particles with higher energies in the distribution of Ti ions.
On the contrary, the energy of Ar ions corresponds to the value of plasma potential. This observation is explained by different ways of origin of these two ions.
The influence of the repetition frequency is shown on the time course of the mean energy. Since the results obtained by means of plasma monitor cannot be straightforwardly interpreted as energy distribution functions, a brief theoretical description of the measurement is given at first.