Effect of peak power in reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering of titanium dioxide

The effect of peak power in a high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) reactive deposition of TiO2 films has been studied with respect to the deposition rate and coating properties. With increasing peak power not only the ionization of the sputtered material increases but also their energy. In order to correlate the variation in the ion energy distributions with the film properties, the phase composition, density and optical properties of the films grown with different HiPIMS-parameters have been investigated and compared to a film grown using direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS). All experiments were performed for constant average power and pulse on time (100 W and 35 μs, respectively), different peak powers were achieved by varying the frequency of pulsing. Ion energy distributions for Ti and O and its dependence on the process conditions have been studied. It was found that films with the highest density and highest refractive index were grown under moderate HiPIMS conditions (moderate peak powers) resulting in only a small loss in mass-deposition rate compared to DCMS. It was further found that TiO2 films with anatase and rutile phases can be grown at room temperature without substrate heating and without post-deposition annealing.