Determination of the effective electron emission yields of compound materials

The effective electron emission yield from oxidized and nitrided targets in a magnetron discharge is determined based on the linear relationship between the inverse of the measured discharge voltage and the ion induced emission yield of metals. The emission yield of these compound materials depends on their electronic properties. Indeed, nitrides with a wide band gap have a high yield while small band gap semiconductors and conductors have a low emission yield. The same seems to hold for the oxides. However, for these latter materials the behaviour is complicated by reduction of the oxide under ion bombardment.