Texture development in silver films deposited by ionised magnetron sputterdeposition

Texture development of silver films made by ionised magnetron sputter depos ition (LMSD) on a naturally oxidised Si(001) substrate has been studied. Th e deposition technique used an r.f. coil to generate a high-density inducti on plasma confined close to the substrate. A sufficient ion flux, containin g ions of the sputtering gas and the depositing species, can easily be draw n to the substrate with a substrate bias. Therefore, this process is able t o provide controllable energetic ion bombardment, in terms of both flux (by r.f. power) and energy (by substrate bias). Ion bombardment induced (111) texture of silver films was characterised using the X-ray diffraction (XRD) method. The texture: was investigated as a function of the operational par ameters of IMSD, including gas pressure, ion Aux, ion incident energy and i onisation fraction of depositing species. It was found that the texture was sensitive to the energy per deposited atom, which was the product of the n ormalised ion flux (total ion flux/total depositing flux) and incident ener gy. By the precise control of ion bombardment during film growth, a method to control film texture using the IMSD technique is presented. (C) 2000 Els evier Science S.A. All rights reserved.