Measurement of deposition rate and ion energy distribution in a pulsed dc magnetron sputtering system using a retarding field analyzer with embedded quartz crystal microbalance.

A compact retarding field analyzer with embedded quartz crystal microbalance has been developed to measure deposition rate, ionized flux fraction, and ion energy distribution arriving at the substrate location. The sensor can be placed on grounded, electrically floating, or radio frequency (rf) biased electrodes. A calibration method is presented to compensate for temperature effects in the quartz crystal.

Ion angle distribution measurement with a planar retarding field analyzer.

A new technique is presented to measure the angular distribution of plasma ions bombarding the substrate surface with a planar retarding field analyzer. By varying the effective aspect ratio of the analyzer's aperture, ions with different angular spread that are allowed through the device for detection are controlled. The analytical theory developed to define the ion current as a function of incident ion angle, ion energy, aperture geometry, and aspect ratio is shown.