ITO thin films prepared by electron beam evaporation with End-Hall ion source assisted without heating to the substrate

1Introduction ITO(indiumoxidedopedwithtin)trans parentconductingfilmshaveuniqueopticaland electricalpropertiesofhightransmittanceinthe visibleregionandstrongreflectanceintheinfra redregionaswellastheexcellentconductivity.Forthesecharacteristics,ITOfilmsplayanim portantroleinthefieldofoptoelectronicde vices,suchastransparentelectrodeforelectro magneticinterference(EMI)shielding,electro chromicwindow[1],liquidcrystaldisplays(LCD)[2],andarchitecturalapplications.Ava rietyofthinfilmdepositiont…     

Comparison of ion beam sputtered chromium and iridium films for electron microscopy applications

The structure and composition of thin, conductive metallic films of chromium and iridium that are typical of the coatings used for electron microscopy is described. The purpose of this study was to determine the grain size and composition of the films deposited, with thicknesses of 1 nm, 2.5 nm, and 5 nm, onto amorphous carbon films using ion beam sputtering with argon as the sputtering gas. A comparison between chromium films deposited under conditions of liquid nitrogen (LN) trapping or of no trapping revealed slight differences in their microstructure. As expected, the grain size of the films increased with the thickness, and the average grain sizes varied between 10 and 25 nm. Grain size was also found to depend on the source of ion beam energy; the correlation between grain size and beam energy was more pronounced in the iridium films than in the chromium films. This effect was greater when the deposition chamber was not LN trapped. As the ion beam energy increased from 18 W to 24 W, there was a corresponding increase in grain size in some of the films. Although transmission electron diffraction analysis indicated the presence of about 5% chromium oxide in the chromium films, no oxide was detected in the iridium films.     

利用磨料流去除空心滚子内孔氧化皮的试验研究

针对滚动轴承空心滚子内孔去氧化皮的难题,采用粒度为46,220目的碳化硅黏弹性流体磨料,对挤压轧机轴承的空心滚子进行去除内孔氧化皮试验,结果表明:利用磨料流加工方法可以有效去除空心滚子内孔的氧化皮;在相同的磨料流加工参数下,采用不同粒度的碳化硅磨粒可获得不同的加工表面,加工表面应与所用的碳化硅磨粒相匹配,氧化皮较厚的加...     

High resolution shadowing for electron microscopy by sputter deposition.

The sputtering process by an ion beam well collimated and highly accelerated provides a valuable means of high resolution shadowing, replication of a fine object by a combination of pre-shadowing and deposition as well as a preparation of supporting films. High resolution shadowing and films with grains smaller than 1 nm can be obtained by argon ion-sputtering targets of tungsten and tungsten/tantalum alloy. The resolution of carbon replicas pre-shadowed with tungsten/tantalum is determined from the radius of curvature of replicated magnesium oxide crystal corners.     

A laboratory setup for obtaining silicon carbide films by the direct ion deposition method

A laboratory setup for direct ion deposition intended for obtaining silicon carbide films under the conditions of the condensation of carbon and silicon ions with energies of ≥100 eV is described. The setup contains an original vacuum-arc source of carbon-silicon plasma with an extended cathode and an inhomogeneous magnetic field. The design features of the plasma source, the main technological characteristics of the setup, and the regimes of deposition of nanocrystalline silicon carbide films are presented.     

Equipment for deposition of thin metallic films bombarded by fast argon atoms

Deposition of thin metallic films on dielectric substrates using a source of metal atom flow combined with a flow fast argon atoms has been investigated and the investigation results are presented. The fast atoms are produced due to charge-exchange collisions in a vacuum chamber of argon ions, which are accelerated by potential difference between the hollow-cathode glow-discharge plasma and an emissive grid and enter the chamber through the grid. The metal atoms produced due to ion sputtering of a metallic foil placed on the inner surface of the hollow cathode enter the chamber through the same grid. Substrate pretreatment and pulse-periodic bombardment of the growing film by ～1-keV argon atoms both ensure adhesion of copper to glass up to 2 × 10⁷ Pa. The use of a hollow substrate holder, whose inner surface is also covered with the same foil, makes it possible to exclude losses of the depositing metal and allows recommendation of the equipment for beam-assisted deposition of precious metal films.     

脉冲多弧离子源的研制

脉冲多弧离子源主要用来镀制类金刚石薄膜及金属、合金膜,研究了脉冲多弧离子源的引弧方法、放电的稳定性、离子源结构对镀膜均匀性的影响。在此基础上,研制了脉冲多弧离子源,利用该源镀制了类金刚石薄膜及镍铬铁合金渐变膜。经测试,膜层性能良好。     

Specimen coating for high resolution scanning electron microscopy

Thin conducting films, produced by evaporation or soft vacuum sputtering generally show cracks and grain formation, when examined under high resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These artefacts can obscure surface features of coated specimens or cause confusion in the interpretation of micrographs. No such structures have been observed in films produced by ion beam deposition. Ion beam deposition equipment is described in which a cold cathode saddle field ion source, operating at low pressure (15mPa), produces a 2 mm diameter beam of energetic ions (5 keV) and neutrals. With the beam directed onto a target at 30° to glancing incidence, the sputtered material coats the specimens, which are held in a planetary system for good coverage. Conditions favouring fine grain growth are a high nucleation density and low energy transfer to the substrate by thermal conduction or radiation or by particle or photon radiation. These conditions are satisfied by ion beam deposition but evidently not by evaporation or soft vacuum sputtering. With the specimen stationary, sharp shadowing is obtained because the target acts almost as a point source, because of the small diameter of the beam and because there is little scatter at the operating pressure.     

A Method for Evaluating the Thickness of Ultrathin Films

A method for determining the thickness of ultrathin (<10 nm) films using an atomic-force microscope is described. Films were deposited onto a porous glass substrate that has smooth surface areas between the pores when the flow of the evaporated material incident on the substrate is at an angle of 20°–30° with respect to the normal to its surface. In order to obtain pores with sharp edges, the substrate surface was preliminarily sputtered by an oxygen ion beam directed at an angle of 90° to this surface. Images of such films obtained using the atomic-force microscopy technique clearly resolve the position of the pore edge–film boundary, making it possible to evaluate the film thickness by the height of the step between the pore edge and the by surface in the cross section of the surface topography.     

The application of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) to the study of thin anodic films on nickel and nickel-molybdenum alloys

Anodized thin-film samples of nickel, molybedenum and a nickel-13 w/o molybdenum alloy have been analysed by scanning transmission electron microscopy, using selected area diffraction, microdiffraction and X-ray micro-analysis. Thin-film samples were obtained by ion thinning with argon and by electropolishing in acetic acid-perchloric acid. Electropolishing is the preferred technique for these studies, producing a surface with roughness on a scale of 1 nm. The anodized films on nickel and nickel 13 w/o molybdenum alloy exhibit a rugosity with a ‘particle’ size of 3 nm. The crystal structure of the films is similar to f.c.c. nickel oxide. Molybdenum enrichment was detected in the anodized alloy surfaces but there is no electron diffraction evidence for a crystalline molybdenum oxide. The electron diffraction pattern from anodized pure molybdenum suggests that the surface film is amorphous.     

Low-energy linear oxygen plasma source

A new version of a constricted plasma source is described, characterized by all metal-ceramic construction, a linear slit exit of 180 mm length, and cw operation (typically 50 kHz) at an average power of 1.5 kW. The plasma source is here operated with oxygen gas, producing streaming plasma that contains mainly positive molecular and atomic ions, and to a much lesser degree, negative ions. The maximum total ion current obtained was about 0.5 A. The fraction of atomic ions reached more than 10% of all ions when the flow rate was less then 10 SCCM O(2), corresponding to a chamber pressure of about 0.5 Pa for the selected pumping speed. The energy distribution functions of the different ion species were measured with a combined mass spectrometer and energy analyzer. The time-averaged distribution functions were broad and ranged from about 30 to 90 eV at 200 kHz and higher frequencies, while they were only several eV broad at 50 kHz and lower frequencies, with the maximum located at about 40 eV for the grounded anode case. This maximum was shifted down to about 7 eV when the anode was floating, indicating the important role of the plasma potential for the ion energy for a given substrate potential. The source could be scaled to greater length and may be useful for functionalization of surfaces and plasma-assisted deposition of compound films.     

Generation of an ion beam in a glow-discharge source

A mechanism of ion extraction from a glow-discharge ion source based on a hollow cathode and used for elemental analysis of solids, is considered Experiments have shown that two oppositely directed ion flows are formed from ions produced in the region of negative glow-discharge fluorescence. One flow has an ion energy ≥ 100 eV, is directed to the cathode, and bombards and sputters the analyzed sample. The sputtered atoms diffuse into the negative-glow region and are ionized. The second flow (low-energy ions) is extracted from the same negative-glow region and transported from the cathode to the surface of the anode chamber owing to an ambipolar diffusion. These ions are extracted from a hole in the anode chamber of a standard ion source by an electric field and are used for mass-spectrum analysis. The energy-distribution width for these ions is ∼5 eV. The intensity of the ion beam extracted from the anode hole is an order of magnitude higher than the intensity of the ion beam extracted from the cathode region. Original Russian Text ? G.G. Sikharulidze, 2009, published in Pribory i Tekhnika Eksperimenta, 2009, No. 2, pp. 105–109.     

An Ion-Beam Apparatus for the Surface Planarization of Oxide Materials

The ion-beam apparatus described contains two identical wide-aperture sources of oxygen ions with cold hollow cathodes. One of them serves for depositing a thin layer of the target material on the heated surface of the treated sample by the ion sputtering technique (the target is made of the same material as the sample or a material with similar properties). The second source is used to sputter the obtained structure. The apparatus makes it possible to planarize surfaces of oxide materials by successively filling depressions with a layer of the target material and then sputtering this structure over a depth slightly exceeding the depth of the deposited layer. The deposition–sputtering cycles are repeated with a gradual decrease in the deposited layer thickness.     

Modernization of the injector for a multibeam proton accelerator

Within the program for the development of high-current charged-particle accelerators with a high acceleration rate, an injector for a 19-beam proton accelerator with a multibeam ion injection mode is described. The injector contains an ion gun with a duoplasmatron-type H₂ ion source and a multiaperture ion-optical system regulating the inclination of the ion-beam current tubes at the inputs of the corresponding channels of the accelerating structure. The cold-cathode ion source contains a system for transporting plasma from the cathode to its output aperture in magnetic fields of complex configurations, which allows stable pulsed generation of proton beams with a current amplitude of up to 3 A at an operating gas pressure in the discharge chamber of 0.2 Torr and a decrease in the flow of unionized gas emerging from the source to 2 cm³/h. It is shown that the developed ion source and the ion-optical system make it possible to increase the phase density of the beam current at the inputs of the accelerating-structure channels and to change the divergence angles.     

Increase in the Charge State of the Uranium Ion Beam Generated by the MEVVA Ion Source

The Metal Vapor Vacuum Arc (MEVVA) ion source and its modifications are investigated at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP). In a series of the experiments, the possibility of increasing the charge state of the generated uranium ion beam was revealed. The charge state increases as a result of developing a high-current vapor vacuum arc discharge from the source cathode to an auxiliary anode located in an increasing axial magnetic field. The uranium ion beam with a total current of 150 mA was obtained, U⁷⁺ uranium ions being 10% of the current.     

Tribological properties of nickel-base nanocrystalline coatings sputter-deposited on austenitic stainless steel

500 nm-thick films are deposited on austenitic stainless steel by neutral (Ar⁺) or reactive (N⁺) ion beam sputtering of Ni or NiTi targets, with (or without) high energy 160 keV-Ar⁺ ion beam assistance. Most of the time the coatings are nanocrystalline and induce a large (excellent in some conditions) increase of the wear resistance. Only Ar⁺ ion beam sputtering of a NiTi target gives an amorphous deposit which does not improve the substrate tribological properties. The hardness and wear resistance of ion beam assisted films are larger than those obtained with non-ion beam assisted coatings. The presence of a hard TiN phase inside a ductile Ni phase, of grains with preferential orientation beneficial to slip, as well as film densification are the main factors which increase the wear resistance. The best results are obtained when the structure is composed of two phases, Ni and TiN. The TiN phase strengthens the already good tribological Ni properties and the Ni ductility induces mechanical accommodation during the friction process.     

An ion source with an ejecting U-shaped electrode

The design of an ion source is described, in which any replacement of diaphragms of electron and ion optics can be performed and, as a result, new technical characteristics of the source can be obtained. The extended capabilities of the ion source are substantial for revealing the causes of such a phenomenon as a spread in measurements of lifetimes of negative ions, which are performed using instruments of different types. The use of an ejecting U-shaped electrode in the source allowed the intensity of recorded signals to be increased by a factor of at least 2.     

Effect of reinforcing submicron SiC particles on the wear process of electrolytic NiP coatings

The effect of submicron silicon carbide frictional strengthening admixtures and heat treatment on the wear process of nickel phosphide coatings obtained by electrolytic deposition is studied. Despite the heat treatment and admixtures of silicon carbides, the wear of the coatings is of abrasion-oxidizing nature; in the case of NiP-SiC composite coatings, the oxide films formed during the friction process do not exhibit the shield effect; these films show a considerable effect on the wear of silicon-free NiP coatings. The silicon carbide admixtures increase the hardness of the electrolytic coatings but prevent the oxide films formed in the frictional process from attaching to the contact surface. Annealing of the coating reduces the wear rate. In the process of heat treatment, the crystalline phase Ni₃P is formed in the NiP matrix, increasing the coating hardness. At the same time, in the process of annealing of NiP-SiC composite coatings, the NiP matrix cracks around the silicon carbides. As a result, silicon carbides are extracted in the frictional process and the wear rate of the NiP-SiC composite coating grows.     

热电子轰击气体离子源若干结构与工艺问题

本文仅对热电子轰击气体离子源设计中有关结构和工艺方面存在的若干问题进行了论述，并通过离子轨迹模拟实验和离子源结构调节实验定性定量地阐明了离子源电极的数量、形状、几何尺寸及电参数对离子源性能的影响。同时，给出了部分图形和数据，供离子源设计者参考。     

Study on monatomic fraction improvement with alumina layer on metal electrode in hydrogen plasma ion source

A high monatomic beam fraction is an important factor in a hydrogen ion source to increase the application efficiency. The monatomic fraction of hydrogen plasmas with different plasma electrode materials is measured in a helicon plasma ion source, and aluminum shows the highest value compared to that with the other metals such as copper and molybdenum. Formation of an aluminum oxide layer on the aluminum electrode is determined by XPS analysis, and the alumina layer is verified as the high monatomic fraction. Both experiments and numerical simulations conclude that a low surface recombination coefficient of the alumina layer on the plasma electrode is one of the most important parameters for increasing the monatomic fraction in hydrogen plasma ion sources.