High-energy laser-assisted hybrid magnetron sputtering for enhanced thin film deposition

制造业仍然是工业的关键驱动力，在非常具体的应用的材料和设备的先进制造方面做出了巨大努力。其中许多依赖于或可以使用例如脉冲激光沉积或磁控溅射提供的纳米沉积/涂层来显著增强。这两种方法都有特定的优点和缺点，例如与成分控制或均匀覆盖的区域有关。虽然已经有关于实施混合进程的提议，但提供稳定和适应性强的业务范围以获取这两种技术的好处的专用进程尚未得到证明。我们以前已经证明，当磁控溅射靶连续运行时，其流畅度超过消融阈值的激光脉冲对其影响。结果表明，与ns激光相比，对于ps激光脉冲，烧蚀阈值显著降低，并且环境压力对沉积薄膜的质量起着重要的作用。该方案的目的是使用混合方法在室温附近沉积三种专用薄膜系统，以生成非常特殊的结构和较大的涂层面积。这些薄膜具有强烈的技术兴趣，同时将沉积过程的不同方面推向极端。我们计划合成(Hf，Zr)O2隧道结，用于神经形态计算，需要在几个纳米范围内出色地控制厚度。然后我们推荐了羟基磷灰石，这是一种生物相容性材料，其沉积速率和大面积覆盖率都很高，需要专用的介观结构，最终还需要双钙钛矿型Bi2FeCrO6，它具有可调的带隙，以实现块状光伏效应，这依赖于在非常窄的工艺窗口中对磁有序的控制。通过与我们的工业合作伙伴合作，并使用独特的高功率激光基础设施ALL，我们希望在令人鼓舞的初步结果的基础上证明，我们新的混合方法不仅提供稳定的中间生长条件，而且具有根据各种材料、沉积速率和区域微调工艺参数的极佳潜力。

The manufacturing sector remains a key driver in industry, with a strong effort in the advanced manufacturing of materials and devices for very specific applications. Many of those rely on or can significantly be enhanced using nanometric deposition/coating as provided by e.g. pulse laser deposition or magnetron sputtering. Both methods have specific benefits and demerits related to e.g. the control of composition or the area for homogeneous coverage. While there have been proposals to implement hybrid processes, a dedicated process to provide a stable and adaptable range of operation accessing the benefits of both techniques, is yet to be demonstrated. We have previously demonstrated the effect of laser pulses with fluencies exceeding the ablation threshold on the magnetron sputtering target, while it operates continuously. It has been shown that with fs, or ps laser pulses, the ablation threshold decreases very significantly compared to ns lasers and that the ambient pressure plays a significant role for the quality of deposited films. The aim of this proposal is the deposition of three dedicated thin films systems near room temperature using the hybrid approach for generating very specific structures and large coating areas. These thin films have strong technological interest while pushing different aspects of the deposition process to extremes. We plan to synthesize (Hf, Zr)O2 tunnel junctions, for neuromorphic computing that requires excellent control of the thickness in the range of a few nanometers. We then suggest hydroxyapatite, a biocompatible material for which large deposition rates and large area coverage are desirable with a need for a dedicated mesoscopic structure and ultimately the double perovskite Bi2FeCrO6, with a tunable bandgap for the bulk photovoltaic effect that relies on the control of magnetic ordering in a very narrow process window. In collaboration with our industrial partners and using the unique high-power laser infrastructure ALLS, we expect to demonstrate, based on encouraging preliminary results, that the our novel hybrid approach does not only provide stable intermediate growth conditions but an excellent potential to fine-tune the process parameters to a large variety of materials, deposition rates and areas.