Introduction Purity is one of the prime performance requirements of target selection, which has been explained in our previous article. It takes countless money, time, and labor every year to separate impurities. However, do impurities always have a negative influence on sputtering? We are going to explore this question in this article with specific cases....Continue Reading
The foundation of plasma technology is a basic physical principle. When energy is applied to matter, solids become liquids, and liquids turn into gases. If yet more energy is applied, the gas is ionized and it enters the energy-rich plasma state, the fourth state of matter. Plasma is a word used to describe matter that...Continue Reading
What is PVD Coating? Physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating refers to various coating techniques in which thin layers are created on a substrate using physical techniques. Each technology has a unique set of benefits. PVD coating starts by depositing films with precise stoichiometries to achieve color PVD finishes (ratio of certain elements). Typically, a base...Continue Reading
Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) is a thin-film coating technique that physically converts a solid or liquid source of material into gaseous atoms, molecules, or ions under vacuum, which are then deposited on the surface of a substrate to form a thin film. The PVD-coated film has the advantages of fast deposition speed, strong adhesion, good diffraction performance,...Continue Reading
If you’ve ever heard of thin film coatings, then you might know about Sputtering! This involves materials being ejected from a source called a “target” onto a “substrate” like a silicon wafer. By injecting a reactive gas (usually oxygen or nitrogen) into the plasma, which is normally created by an inert gas like argon (the...Continue Reading
What is Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD)? Pulse laser deposition is a method of physical vapor deposition. In this process, a high-power pulsed laser beam is centered on a target within the vacuum chamber. The laser beam vaporizes the target material and deposits it as a thin film on a substrate. The process involves evaporation, ablation,...Continue Reading
What is CIGS Thin-Film Photovoltaic? Thin-film photovoltaics, also called solar cells, are devices that convert light energy into electrical energy using the photovoltaic effect. The photovoltaic effect explains how voltage is produced when light strikes a material. CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) is a semiconductor material most popularly known for its use in solar cells with...Continue Reading
What is Magnetron Sputtering? Sputtering is the process in which the atoms or molecules of a material are ejected from a target by bombarding the target with high-energy particles. This is called DC sputtering or diode sputtering. A major disadvantage of such sputtering technique is that it has very low deposition rates and involves higher...Continue Reading
The magnetron sputtering system has been in use for several decades now. Even recently, there have been advancements that have improved the performance of the sputtering system in general. For instance, the closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering technique has now been developed so that it can be routinely used to deposit high-quality coatings of an extensive...Continue Reading
