Highly precise composition control by mass spectrometry for depositing thin-film ferroic material

溅射沉积甚至用于合成诸如形状记忆合金之类的铁性材料，因为使用多个溅射源沉积金属化合物薄膜相对容易。然而，高精度的成分控制有望进一步应用于工业，因为材料的特定性质强烈地依赖于材料的组成而变化。在这项研究中，我们提出了一种新的成分控制方法，即利用质谱仪进行控制。我们达到了0.5%的原子精度，尽管传统方法最多只能达到1.0%。

Sputtering deposition is used even for synthesizing ferroic material such as shape-memory alloys, since it is comparatively easy to deposit a thin film of metallic compound using plural sputter sources. However, highly precise composition control is expected for further application of ferroic materials to industry, because the specific properties of the materials are changeable strongly depending on the material's composition. In this study we proposed a new composition-control method which uses mass spectrometry. We achieved 0.5 atomic percent of precision, although conventional methods could achieve 1.0 percent at most.