Modelling of sputtering yield amplification in serial reactive magnetron co-sputtering

Serial magnetron co-sputtering can be used to increase the deposition rate in reactive deposition of thin films. The increase in deposition rate is achieved by sputtering yield amplification through doping the sputtering target by a heavy element. The dopant is introduced by means of sputtering from an auxiliary target onto a rotating primary magnetron. During sputtering of the primary target, the dopant is implanted into the target surface. Here we present a model describing the serial co-sputtering technique. The model is based on the binary collision approximation and takes into account the dynamical sputtering and mixing at the target surface. As an example, W and Bi doping in reactive sputter deposition of Al2O3 is analyzed. W is shown to be very efficient dopant which can increase the deposition rate for oxide up to 100% with 1.6 at.% of W in the resulting coating. Doping by Bi is not very effective due to the low surface binding energy of Bi. The simulations show that sputtering yield amplification can be realized in the serial co-sputtering setup with rotating magnetrons. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.