Mayr Lukas, Köpfle Norbert, Auer Andrea, Klötzer Bernhard, Penner Simon
Institute for Physical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2013 Sep;84(9):094103. doi: 10.1063/1.4821148.
A miniaturised CF-38 mountable sputter source for oxide and metal thin film preparation with enhanced high-vacuum and ultra-high-vacuum compatibility is described. The all home-built sputtering deposition device allows a high flexibility also in oxidic sputter materials, suitable deposition rates for preparation of films in the nm- and the sub-monolayer regime and excellent reliability and enhanced cleanliness for usage in UHV chambers. For a number of technologically important--yet hardly volatile--materials, the described source represents a significant improvement over thermal deposition techniques like electron-beam- or thermal evaporation, as especially the latter are no adequate tool to prepare atomically clean layers of refractory oxide materials. Furthermore, it is superior to commercially available magnetron sputter devices, especially for applications, where highly reproducible sub-monolayer thin film preparation under very clean UHV conditions is required (e.g., for studying phase boundary effects in catalysis). The device in turn offers the usage of a wide selection of evaporation materials and special target preparation procedures also allow the usage of pressed oxide powder targets. To prove the performance of the sputter-source, test preparations with technologically relevant oxide components, comprising ZrO2 and yttrium-stabilized ZrO2, have been carried out. A wide range of characterization methods (electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, low-energy ion scattering, atomic force microscopy, and catalytic testing) were applied to demonstrate the properties of the sputter-deposited thin film systems.
本文描述了一种用于制备氧化物和金属薄膜的小型CF-38可安装溅射源，其具有增强的高真空和超高真空兼容性。这种全自制的溅射沉积设备在氧化溅射材料方面也具有很高的灵活性，适用于制备纳米级和亚单层级薄膜的沉积速率，并且在超高真空腔室中使用时具有出色的可靠性和更高的清洁度。对于许多技术上重要但挥发性极低的材料，所描述的溅射源相对于电子束蒸发或热蒸发等热沉积技术有显著改进，特别是后者不足以制备原子级清洁的难熔氧化物材料层。此外，它优于市售的磁控溅射设备，特别是对于需要在非常清洁的超高真空条件下高度可重复制备亚单层薄膜的应用（例如，用于研究催化中的相界效应）。该设备反过来提供了广泛选择蒸发材料的用途，特殊的靶材制备程序还允许使用压制的氧化物粉末靶材。为了证明溅射源的性能，已经进行了包含ZrO2和钇稳定ZrO2等技术相关氧化物成分的测试制备。应用了广泛的表征方法（电子显微镜、X射线光电子能谱、低能离子散射、原子力显微镜和催化测试）来证明溅射沉积薄膜系统的性能。
