An investigation of target poisoning during reactive magnetron sputtering using ion beam analysis and energy resolved mass spectroscopy

The effect of target poisoning is commonly observed in reactive magnetron sputtering, where a metallic target is sputtered in reactive gas atmosphere. This phenomenon can be described quite well in terms of sputter rate, reactive gas pressure and pumping speed, however the details of the processes on the target are not yet understood. In this work, an experimental setup is presented that combines energy resolved mass spectroscopy with quantitative in situ nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) of the reactive species target coverage. By adjusting the position of the magnetron, locally resolved information is obtained across the target surface. Experiments have been performed for the reactive deposition of TiN in an Ar/N2 gas mixture at varying process parameters, with special emphasis on the transition from metallic to poisoned target mode.
In the centre of the race track the nitrogen coverage is significantly smaller than on the remaining part of the target surface. The maximum amount of retained nitrogen significantly exceeds one adsorbed monolayer, which is attributed to nitrogen ion implantation and recoil implantation of adsorbed nitrogen.
The energy distribution of the neutral species is clearly composed from particles originating from the gas atmosphere and sputtered particles from the magnetron target. Significant differences in the energy distribution of the sputtered atoms are observed between the centre and the erosion zone of the target. The ratio of sputtered N/Ti atoms reflects characteristically the metallic or compound mode of operation.