Improvement of Thin Film Adhesion Due to Bombardment by Fast Argon Atoms

A new hollow cathode sputtering system is used for beam-assisted deposition of thin films on dielectric substrates. A copper target placed at the hollow cathode bottom is uniformly sputtered by argon ions from the glow discharge plasma filling the cathode. Through an emissive grid, sputtered copper atoms leave the cathode together with accelerated argon ions. On their way to the substrate, the ions—due to charge exchange collisions—turn into fast argon atoms bombarding the growing film. With increasing argon ion energy, continuous bombardment results in the film adhesion improvement and reduction of the deposition rate down to zero, at an energy of about 2 keV. The pulsed bombardment does not influence the film deposition rate, and results in a monotonic growth of the film adhesion up to 20 MPa when increasing the fast atom energy up to 10 keV.

Milling of Dielectric Ceramics by Fast Argon Atoms

A new method for dielectric materials milling has been developed. Instead of well-known ion milling used for metals the dielectrics were processed by broad beams of fast argon atoms. The fast atoms were produced due to charge exchange collisions of accelerated ions. Plasma emitter of the ions was generated in hollow cathode glow discharge. Emissive grid of a circular cross-section beam source consisted of six segments. Energy of the fast atoms ranged from 1 to 3 keV. The beam source was used for production of contoured grooves on flat surfaces of hard ceramic materials. On the surface of movable seal ring made of α-corundum were produced grooves with depth of 20±0.5 μm and roughness of Ra ≈ 0.4 µm. The rate of α-corundum etching amounted to 3 μm/h.

Synthesis of Superhard Coatings Using Pulsed Beams of High-Energy Gas Molecules

It is proposed to use for synthesis of superhard and fracture tough nanocomposite coatings on dielectric products with deep cavities a source of metal atoms accompanied by pulsed beams of high-energy neutral gas molecules. Slow and fast particles are produced by one and the same plasma emitter of ions and trajectories of their movement from a common emissive grid to the product surface coincide.