A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLASMA CHARACTERISTICS AND FILM PROPERTIES FOR MgO BY PULSED DC MAGNETRON SPUTTERING

  • Nam, Kyung H. (Center for Advanced Plasma Surface Technology, Suknkyunkwan University) ;
  • Chung, Yun M. (Center for Advanced Plasma Surface Technology, Suknkyunkwan University) ;
  • Han, Jeon G. (Center for Advanced Plasma Surface Technology, Suknkyunkwan University)
  • Published : 2001.11.01

Abstract

agnesium Oxide (MgO) with a NaCI structure is well known to exhibit high secondary electron emission, excellent high temperature chemical stability, high thermal conductance and electrical insulating properties. For these reason MgO films have been widely used for a buffer layer of high $T_c$ superconducting and a protective layer for AC-plasma display panels to improve discharge characteristics and panel lifetime. Up to now MgO films have been synthesized by lE-beam evaporation, Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), however there have been some limitations such as low film density and micro-cracks in films. Therefore magnetron sputtering process were emerged as predominant method to synthesis high density MgO films. In previous works, we designed and manufactured unbalanced magnetron source with high power density for the deposition of high quality MgO films. The magnetron discharges were sustained at the pressure of O.lmtorr with power density of $110W/\textrm{cm}^2$ and the maximum deposition rate was measured at $2.8\mu\textrm{m}/min$ for Cu films. In this study, the syntheses of MgO films were carried out by unbalanced magnetron sputtering with various $O_2$ partial pressure and specially target power densities, duty cycles and frequency using pulsed DC power supply. And also we investigated the plasma states with various $O_2$ partial pressure and pulsed DC conditions by Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES). In order to confirm the relationships between plasma states and film properties such as microstructure and secondary electron emission coefficient were analyzed by X-Ray Diffraction(XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy(TEM) and ${\gamma}-Focused$ Ion Beam (${\gamma}-FIB$).

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