PLASMA-ACTIVATED HIGH-RATE ELECTRON-BEAM EVAPORATION USING A SPOTLESSCATHODIC ARC

The paper presents an intense-plasma-activated deposition process call ed spotless-arc-activated deposition (SAD). This process has been devi sed for high rate electron beam evaporation in a power range of 20-300 kW and uses a cathodic are burning in the vapour cloud above the evap orant. Under explicit conditions a diffuse are discharge will be forme d without defined spots at the cathodic surface. A high deposition rat e in the range 50-1000 nm s(-1) is accompanied by an intense bombardme nt with ions and excited particles. The resulting ion current density on the substrate is of the order of magnitude of 10-100 mA cm(-2). No droplets were observed in the deposited films. The effectiveness of th e SAD process is demonstrated by examples of titanium films deposited by ion plating and of titanium nitride films deposited by plasma-activ ated reactive evaporation.