A three-year project awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop novel technologies for depositing thin films is underway.

The contract award is under DARPA’s Local Control of Materials Synthesis (LoCo) program, which is investigating non-thermal approaches for depositing thin-film coatings onto the surfaces of a variety of materials. The objective of the program is to overcome the reliance on high-thermal energy input by examining the process of thin-film deposition at the molecular component level in areas such as reactant flux, surface mobility and reaction energy, among others.

Many current high-temperature deposition processes cannot be used on military vehicles and other equipment because they exceed the temperature limit of the material. The LoCo program will attempt to create new, low-temperature deposition processes and a new range of coating-substrate pairings to improve the surface properties of materials used in a wide range of defense technologies including rotor blades, infrared missile domes and photovoltaics, among others. Read More

KAMIS manufactures sputtering targets for all sputtering systems in pure metals, alloys, and ceramic materials. 

Magnetron sputtering was initially developed using metal or alloy targets with materials having high electrical conductivity (e.g., Al, Ag, Au, Cu, Ti, Mo, etc.). In order to achieve acceptable deposition rates, the target material needed to be electrically and thermally conductive. Ceramic targets were developed for transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) and usually consisted of films made from compositions of ZnO:Al2O3 (2% wt) or In2O3:SnO2 (10% wt). However, as the name implies, the materials were fairly conductive and were suited for DC magnetron sputtering.

Pulsed-DC and RF magnetron sputtering allows for the deposition of materials with poor electrical conductivity. Semiconductor materials with better electrical conductivity can be sputtered with pulsed-DC power supplies, while insulating materials (mainly ceramics) require RF sputtering. The deposition rates for RF sputtering are generally much lower than with pulsed-DC. Also, pulsed-DC sputtering has a lower deposition rate than DC sputtering. New applications in photovoltaic, thermoelectric, storage, and semiconductor markets are spurring innovation in ceramic and semiconductor sputtering targets.

DC sputtering with metallic targets has fewer process problems since the metals are ductile and the materials feature high conductivity. Conversely, semiconductor and ceramic targets are more prone to process difficulties due to the brittle nature of the materials and the poor electrical and thermal conductivities. In order to achieve consistent sputtering over the life of the target, it is essential to have a well-sintered target material with high density. Voids and cracks in the material can propagate and lead to sputtering problems such as arcing, target cracking, and particle generation. Read More

A sputtering target is a material that is used to create thin films in a technique known as sputter deposition, or thin film deposition. During this process the sputtering target material, which begins as a solid, is broken up by gaseous ions into tiny particles that form a spray and coat another material, which is known as the substrate. Sputter deposition is commonly involved in the creation of semiconductors and computer chips. As a result, most sputtering target materials are metallic elements or alloys, although there are some ceramic targets available that create hardened thin coatings for various tools.

Depending on the nature of the thin film being created, sputtering targets can very greatly in size and shape. The smallest targets can be less than one inch (2.5 cm) in diameter, while the largest rectangular targets reach well over one yard (0.9 m) in length. Some sputtering equipment will require a larger sputtering target and in these cases, manufacturers will create segmented targets that are connected by special joints.

The designs of sputtering systems, the machines that conduct the thin film deposition process, have become much more varied and specific. Accordingly, target shape and structure has begun to widen in variety as well. The shape of a sputtering target is usually either rectangular or circular, but many target suppliers can create additional special shapes upon request. Certain sputtering systems require a rotating target to provide a more precise, even thin film. These targets are shaped like long cylinders, and offer additional benefits including faster deposition speeds, less heat damage, and increased surface area, which leads to greater overall utility.

The effectiveness of sputtering target materials depends on several factors, including their composition and the type of ions used to break them down. Thin films that require pure metals for the target material will usually have more structural integrity if the target is as pure as possible. The ions used to bombard the sputtering target are also important for producing a decent quality thin film. Generally, argon is the primary gas chosen to ionize and initiate the sputtering process, but for targets that have lighter or heavier molecules a different noble gas, such as neon for lighter molecules, or krypton for heavier molecules, is more effective. It is important for the atomic weight of the gas ions to be similar to that of the sputtering target molecules to optimize the transfer of energy and momentum, thereby optimizing the evenness of the thin film. Read More

A sputtering target of platinum-cobalt alloy is disclosed which contains 10 to 55% by weight of platinum; 1 to 15% by weight of a first additional element selected from the group consisting of nickel and tantalum; no more than 1.5% by weight of a second additional element selected from the group consisting of boron, titanium, lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, beryllium, calcium, zirconium, and silicon; no more than 20% by weight of chromium; and balance cobalt. A method for manufacturing the sputtering target is also disclosed. In the method, a platinum-cobalt alloy containing specific ingredients in predetermined amounts is first prepared. Then, the platinum-cobalt alloy is subjected to hot plastic working with a thickness reduction of no less than 30%. Subsequently, the alloy thus hot worked is subjected to a cold plastic working with a thickness reduction of no less than 5% at a temperature less than the recrystallization temperature of the alloy. Read More

As a result of increased requirements for abrasion resistant and protective thin film coatings, the hardness of thin film coatings has been steadily increasing over the past decade, due primarily to new materials, improved deposition processes and use of nanostructures and nanocomposites. Because it would not be possible to address all these materials, we will briefly describe the following broad categories, with emphasis on nanostructured thin films:

Binary thin films, including transition metal based materials, chromium-based materials, boron-based materials, carbon and diamond-based materials, tungsten and molybdenum based materials.
Ternary thin film materials
Quaternary and higher component thin film materials
Nanostructured materials
Wear resistant thin films are deposited by a wide variety of processes, but most often by physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques because they can be scaled up to industrial sizes and quantities. Read More