Yan Zongkai, Wu Shuai, Song Yu, Xiang Yong, Zhu Jun
School of Materials and Energy, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, China.
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, China.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2020 Jun 1;91(6):065107. doi: 10.1063/5.0011119.
A novel magnetron sputtering process is proposed to fabricate a combinatorial thin-film materials library with highly precise composition spreading. In order to produce a gradient composition spreading for a specific target, a moving shutter is used to cover the deposition substrate step by step with a fixed step-length. By rotating the substrate and repeating the step-by-step masked deposition with different targets in turn, a heterogeneous precursor structure is obtained with alternate stacking of different material layers, each of which is in a step-by-step wedge-shaped thickness cross section. By controlling the thickness of each layer at the nanometer scale, a multilayer structure is formed to facilitate the interlayer diffusion between different precursor layers. It may also define the boundaries of individual sample pixels, resulting in improved composition spreading resolutions for the prepared materials library. A combinatorial magnetron sputtering system is designed with reciprocating rectangular targets, a narrow slit between the substrate and the target, and a quartz crystal microbalance feedback to control the deposition uniformity, resulting in a variation better than 3% across a 76 × 76 mm substrate. Three individual deposition chambers are designed in an annular distribution with 90° angle between each other. Moreover, a step-by-step moving shutter and a rotating substrate holder are incorporated. Combinatorial materials libraries with more than 10 000 individual compositions could be obtained using this system. A Ti-Zr-Ni ternary alloy library was fabricated for demonstration in which the sheet resistance spreading diagram of the Ti-Zr-Ni library was studied as a function of the composition.
提出了一种新型磁控溅射工艺来制备具有高精度成分分布的组合薄膜材料库。为了针对特定靶材产生梯度成分分布，使用一个移动快门以固定步长逐步覆盖沉积基板。通过旋转基板并依次用不同靶材重复逐步掩膜沉积，可获得一种异质前驱体结构，其中不同材料层交替堆叠，每层均具有逐步呈楔形的厚度横截面。通过在纳米尺度上控制每层的厚度，形成多层结构以促进不同前驱体层之间的层间扩散。这也可以定义各个样品像素的边界，从而提高所制备材料库的成分分布分辨率。设计了一种组合磁控溅射系统，该系统具有往复式矩形靶材、基板与靶材之间的窄缝以及石英晶体微天平反馈以控制沉积均匀性，在76×76毫米的基板上，沉积均匀性变化优于3%。三个独立的沉积腔室呈环形分布，彼此之间夹角为90°。此外，还配备了逐步移动快门和旋转基板支架。使用该系统可以获得具有超过10000种单独成分的组合材料库。制备了一个Ti-Zr-Ni三元合金库用于演示，其中研究了Ti-Zr-Ni库的薄层电阻分布图随成分的变化情况。
