Studies on Reactive Sputtering Processes of Oxide Thin Films

在2001财政年度，我们成功地制备了高密度的电感耦合等离子体，并研究了几种操作条件下的基本放电特性，如单独的粉末冶金操作、单独的等离子组件操作以及粉末和等离子同时操作。由于氧化镁、二氧化钛、氧化锌和氧化铝等功能氧化物薄膜具有优异的电学、光学、机械和生物特性，这些材料在工业上的应用迅速增加。因此，对高质量氧化物薄膜的高速沉积提出了更高的要求。在过去，各种技术，如溅射，电子束蒸发，离子镀，和溶胶-凝胶法，都被用来制备氧化物薄膜。一般来说，溅射法具有多晶材料低温加工、大面积膜层均匀、可缩放性等显著优点，但由于其沉积比…较低，限制了其工业应用。更多的TE。例如，在溅射法中，氧化镁的沉积速率最高可达0.5 nm/S。为了高速沉积用作等离子体显示板放电电极保护层的高质量氧化镁薄膜，我们提出了一种新的反应溅射工艺，在该工艺中，传统的平面磁控管(PM)被电感耦合等离子体(ICP)辅助。2001财政年度的结果总结如下：1)采用内部单圈线圈天线，我们已经成功地制作了高密度的ICP。2)使用13.56 MHz的几百瓦的射频功率，产生了密度大于10^&lt的理想的ICP；3)通过用像增强型CCD相机和光谱仪测量轴向和径向空间分布的光发射，我们证实了在靶和衬底电极之间产生了理想的电感耦合等离子体。4)通过上述操作条件的比较，我们证实了电感耦合等离子体和粉末冶金同时工作对溅射金属原子是有效的。较少

In the fiscal year 2001, we have succeeded in producing the high density ICP, and investigated the fundamental discharge properties under several operation conditions such as the sole PM operation, the sole ICP operation, and the simultaneous operation of PM and ICP.The use of functional oxide thin films such as MgO, TiO_2, ZnO, and A1_2O_3 has been rapidly increasing in industry because of superior electrical, optical, mechanical, and biological nature of these materials. Thus, the high-rate deposition of high-quality oxide thin films has been more demanded than ever. In the past, various techniques such as sputtering, electron-beam evaporation, ion plating, and sol-gel methods, have been used for the fabrication of oxide thin films. In general, the sputtering method has the distinct advantages of low temperature processing for polycrystalline materials, film uniformity over large areas, and scalabiliry; however, its industrial application has been limited due to its low deposition ra … More te. For example, the deposition rate for MgO in the sputter based method is at the most 0.5 nm/s. For the purpose of high-rate deposition of high-quality magnesium oxide thin films that have been used as the protection-layers of discharge electrodes in plasma display panels, we have proposed a new reactive sputtering process in which conventional planar magnetron (PM) is assisted -by the inductively coupled plasma (ICP).Obtained results in the fiscal year 2001 are summarized as follows :1) By-using an internal single-turn coil antenna, we have succeeded in producing high-density ICP.2) Application of 13.56MHz RF power of several hundreds ofW generated an ideal ICP with a density of more than 10^<17>m^<-3>.3) As a result of the optical emission measurements of the axial and radial spatial profiles with an image-intensified CCD camera and spectrometers, we have confirmed that an ideal ICP was produced between the target and substrate electrodes.4) As a result of the comparison between the above-mentioned operation conditions, we have confirmed that the simultaneous operation of ICP and PM is effective for reionizing the sputtered metallic atoms. Less