DC/RF Magnetron Sputtering System

Magnetron Sputtering has extensively used method for the erosion of the surfaces and fabricating a variety of industrially important thin films and coatings. The sputter machine is equipped with the RF/DC magnetron guns. RF or DC power can be applied to the individual magnetron. High quality Ferromagnetic, Dielectric, Piezoelectric, Ferroelectric material thin films and metals, nitrides, oxides, carbides thin films at nano scale can be deposited using this equipment. We have four sputtering units with different features in our Functional Nanomaterial Research Laboratory at IIT Roorkee. All the sputtering units are evacuated (~10-7 torr) by using a turbo molecular pump backed by a rotary pump. For alloy formation of different materials, we have co focal arrangement of target guns in sputtering system. For synthesis of multilayer coatings of different materials with large area uniformity, system has the provision of rotating stage.

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Circular discs of 2-inch diameter and 3-5 mm thickness of pure material are used as target material to be sputtered and are mounted on magnetron guns consisting an array of permanent magnets. Further, an Aplab high voltage DC power supply (50-1000 V, 0-1 A) is used for DC sputtering while for an RF sputtering, a RF power supply (500 W at 13.56 MHz) has been used with a Seren MC-2 impedance matching network. The substrates are fixed on a heater (Range: Room temperature–800°C). The temperature of the substrate is controlled using the temperature controller of the heater. After evacuation, an inert gas such as argon (99.999% purity) or an inert gas plus a reactive gas mixture such as Ar + O2 is inserted into the chamber.