MAGNETRON SPUTTERING ON LARGE-SCALE SUBSTRATES - AN OVERVIEW ON THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

In the last 15 years sputter deposition of thin films on large area su bstrates has enjoyed a steady growth. On the one hand, sputtering is g aining more and more market share in applications that in earlier time s have been dominated by evaporation techniques. On the other hand, co mpletely new markets have grown, which would not have been realized wi thout the existence of sputtering (e.g. microelectronics, flat panel d isplays). Some of the reasons for this development are: (1) the abilit y to deposit all kinds of metals including high-melting metals, binary , ternary and multicomponent alloys and compounds with precise control of film composition and structure; (2) the ability to deposit metal o xides, metal nitrides, metal carbides, etc. with precise control of th e layer stoichiometry; (3) the extremely high thickness uniformity of Delta d, less than 2%, that can be realized for example for glass pane s of 3.2 x 6 m size. In the late 1980's and the beginning of the 1990' s, a handful of basically different approaches have been made in order to enhance further the performance of sputter magnetrons for large sc ale applications. This paper gives an overview of the stale of the art of magnetron sputtering for large scale applications, covering the we ll-proven conventional planar magnetron, as well as those solutions th at have grown in the last few years and right now are themselves on th e point of being state of the art. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.