Detailed Syllabus
C-333 Practice and Applications of High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering
This half day tutorial is intended for decision makers, engineers, technician and students interested in equipment availability, applications and process requirements of HIPIMS. Basic understanding or experience with plasma and materials is desirable but not required.
HIPIMS is a highly ionized pulsed sputtering process that produces significant ionization of the sputtered materials that, in turn, enables effective surface modification by ion etching and energetic deposition. Energetic deposition allows the formation of coatings with unique or superior properties compared to other deposition processes. Presently HIPIMS is undergoing the transition from academic research to being a major industrial process.
The tutorial starts with a short introduction in the basics of HIPIMS technology. An extended treatment of HIPIMS is provided by the tutorial C-323 “High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering. The main focus of this tutorial is on commercially available equipment and its specifications as well as the general processing principles. Finally industrial (or close to industrial) applications will be presented.
Topical Outline:1. Introduction to HIPIMS Technology
2. Industrial Equipment
a. HIPIMS pulse generation
b. Process control (reactive HIPIMS)
c. HIPIMS diagnostics
d. HIPIMS Coating systems
3. HIPIMS Applications
a. HIPIMS etching
b. Trench filling, Through via connection
c. TCOs
d. Hard coatings
- nitrides
- carbides
e. Optical coatings
This tutorial is intended for engineers, technicians, students, and others interested in using pulsed plasmas for deposition in general, and high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) in particular. Some basic understanding or experience with plasmas and materials is desirable but not required. The tutorial starts with an introduction to high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS). We will explain the idea behind HIPIMS and the potential for industrial applications, especially the chance to improve adhesion and coating properties, as well as to create new coatings, not possible with other techniques. This course will only cover be a brief introduction to HIPIMS (for extended information and physical background please refer to C 323). Equipped with these basics, we move on to the central topic of this tutorial, the commercially available components for pulse generation and process control, as well as plasma characterization. We will look at the basic principle of a HIPIMS power supply. The different commercially available power supplies will be presented with their corresponding key features. Especially for industrial size processes and reactive sputtering a suited process control is essential. Available systems for active feedback control for reactive HIPIMS will be presented. For the characterization several methods and systems are available. We will focus on the specifics of HIPIMS and on diagnostic tools taking the process characteristics into account. The section will be closed by an overview on HIPIMS machines actually offered by different plant manufacturers. The tutorial is concluded by considering different applications, already industrialized, or close to industrialization. The potential of the different processes used and the general pulse sequences reported in literature will be summarizes and presented. This final section will show the published state of the art of industrialization of HIPIMS technology and provide visions for future applications with new or superior coatings prepared by HIPIMS.
Instructor: Ralf Bandorf, Fraunhofer IST - Braunschweig, Germanyborn 1973, studied Physics at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen/Nuremberg, Germany and received his diploma in 1998. His work focused on preparation of metastable ironsilicides and phase characterization by LEED. In 1998 he joined Fraunhofer IST for his PhD thesis. Ralf Bandorf received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2002 from Fraunhofer IST / Carolo-Wilhelmina Technical University Braunschweig, Germany. His thesis focused on sub-micron tribloogical coatings for electromagnetic microactuators. Ralf continued at Fraunhofer IST as a scientist, specifically as Project leader in Group Micro and Sensor Technology with a Focus on PVD and PACVD coatings. He worked in the field of plastic metallization for flexible circuits, piezoresistive materials (especially based on DLC), electrical conductive and insulating coatings as well as magnetic thin films. In 2007, he became Head of Group “Sensoric Functional Coatings” and since 2015 he has been Head in Group “PACVD and hybrid processes” at Fraunhofer IST. His focus is on PACVD with different excitation, plasma sources, hollow cathode processes, especially gas flow sputtering, and HIPIMS.
Ralf Bandorf is internationally recognized expert in the field of HIPIMS. He was session chair of the HIPIMS session at ICMCTF, US from 2009-2012. He has served as assistant TAC Chair at the Society of Vacuum Coaters since 2009. Ralf is the conference Chairman of the International Conference on Fundamentals and Applications of HIPIMS and Action Chair of the COST Action MP0804: Highly ionized pulse plasma processes (HIPP processes, 2009-2013), a European scientific networking activity gathering experts worldwide in the field of HIPP plasmas, especially HIPIMS.
joined the Nanotechnology Centre for PVD Research at Sheffield Hallam University, UK in 1998 where he obtained his PhD in Plasma Science and Surface Engineering. His research within NTCPVD has concentrated on development of plasma PVD technologies for substrate pretreatment prior to coating deposition to improve adhesion, deposition of coatings with dense microstructure, low-pressure plasma nitriding and hybrid processes of plasma nitriding/coating deposition. He has experience with cathodic vacuum arc discharges, dc and pulsed magnetron discharges, and radio-frequency coil enhanced magnetron sputtering. He utilizes plasma diagnostics such as optical emission spectroscopy (OES), electrostatic probes, energy-resolved mass spectroscopy and atomic absorption spectroscopy. Materials characterization includes high-resolution TEM, STEM, STEM-EDS, SEM, and XRD as well as mechanical testing available at NTCPVD. Arutiun is one of the pioneers of high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) technology and his work in the field has been acknowledged with the R.F. Bunshah Award (2002), the TecVac Prize (2002) and the Hüttinger Industrial Accolade. In 2011 he received the AVS Peter Mark Memorial Award as a top young investigator, and in 2012 he received the SVC Mentor Award. He is an author of more than 50 publications, 10 invited lectures, 3 patents and 1 book chapter in the field of PVD and HIPIMS.
This course is currently available via:
On Location Education Program
