Evolution of the Shadow Effect with Film Thickness and Substrate Conductivity on a Hemispherical Workpiece during Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

Highlights: What are the main findings? There is a threshold thickness and incident angle below which the film is unaffected by the shadow effect during DC magnetron sputtering. The later-deposited film causes the earlier-deposited film to be affected by the shadow effect. The shadow effect manifests earlier for films deposited on the insulator SiO2 than for those deposited on the semiconductor Si. What is the implication of the main finding? There is no need to worry about the shadow effect when the film deposited by oblique incident deposition has small thickness or the incident angle is small. The conductivity of the substrate could influence the shadow effect. When depositing films on a complex workpiece surface by magnetron sputtering, the shadow effect occurs and causes the columnar structure to tilt toward the substrate owing to the oblique incident angle of the plasma flux, affecting the microstructure and properties of the films. Improving the surface diffusion could alleviate the shadow effect, whereas changing the energy of the deposited particles could improve surface diffusion. Different substrate conductivities could affect the energy of the deposited particles when they reach the substrate. In this study, Si (semiconductor) and SiO2 (insulator) sheets are mounted on the inner surface of a hemispherical workpiece, and Ti films with different thicknesses (adjusted by the deposition time) are deposited on the inner surface of the hemispherical workpiece by direct current magnetron sputtering. The results show that there is a threshold thickness and incident angle before the films are affected by the shadow effect. The threshold could be affected by the film thickness, the incident angle, and the conductivity of the substrate. The threshold would decrease as the film thickness or incidence angle increased or the conductivity of the substrate decreased. When the film thickness or incident angle does not reach the threshold, the film would not be affected by the shadow effect. In addition, the film deposited later would tilt the vertical columnar structure of the film deposited earlier. Owing to the different conductivities, the shadow effect manifest earlier for Ti films deposited on the insulator SiO2 than for films deposited on the semiconductor Si when the film thickness is >500 nm.