An investigation of c-HiPIMS discharges during titanium deposition

A modified version of high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) has been used to deposit titanium films at higher deposition rates than for conventional HiPIMS whilst maintaining similar pulse voltages and peak currents. This process, named chopped-HiPIMS (c-HiPIMS) utilises pulses decomposed into several short single pulses instead of single HiPIMS pulses. Experiments show that manipulating the pulse sequence during c-HiPIMS, i.e. the tμon and tμoff times (explained in the glossary) allows for an increase of the deposition rate; increases of up to 150% are reported here for selected conditions. Further, deposition rates higher than those measured using direct current magnetron sputtering are also shown. Investigations by optical emission and optical absorption spectroscopy at the substrate show that the increase of deposition rate is not a consequence of different ion concentrations arriving at the substrate when changing the micro-pulse-off times of c-HiPIMS. Thus alternative reasons for the enhanced deposition rate during c-HiPIMS deposition of metal films are discussed. It is demonstrated that film micro-structure maintains the void free, dense nature typically demonstrated by HiPIMS deposited coatings whilst at enhanced deposition rates. Thus c-HiPIMS allows for the preparation of dense films with the benefit of faster growth rates.