MEPhI scientists have worked out a plasma generator, creating high current pulse magnetron discharge in vapours of the melted material.

The device consists of a plasma node and a power source, and works in special modes of the magnetron discharge: intensive evaporation of the melted material, from which the coating is formed, takes place at the same time as the diffusion. As it is said in the article, published in the scientific journal Surface and Coatings Technology, the new technology will allow quickly and qualitatively put on thin films, which are in demand in the hi-tech sphere.

A huge market share of creation of metal and dielectric coatings for electronics, machine-building, architecture and other spheres belongs to the magnetron deposition. Thus, magnetron deposition is the only way of energy saving coatings’ deposition on buildings’ glass. Moreover, this method is used for putting solid coating on cutting tools along with decorative coatings (titanium nitride on churches’ cupolas instead of gold). In microelectronics such method is used for metallization of electronic circuit cards, in optics – for creation of light filters.

The discovery of the high current pulse magnetron discharge in 1980-s in MEPhI has become a real push in this sphere. In 2000-s the technology of high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) has been incorporated in Europe and in the USA.

“The low speed of the films’ growth on the details in comparison with vacuum evaporation, for example of the magnetron deposition has been a lingering problem,” said MEPhI engineer Alexander Tumarkin, adding, that coatings, obtained by the vacuum evaporation, have a significantly lower quality in comparison with the magnetron one. According to his words, people in industry always had to choose between the quality of articles and the productivity of the enterprise.

“We managed to unite the advantages of both technologies in the created device for radiation of pulse magnetron discharge with a melted cathode,” said the scientist, adding, that the high-current sputtering of the melted target has a great technological potential.

Specialists are currently working on industrial samples of the device, that is to be incorporated on industry in future. “The industrial samples of the device will be used as plasma generator in industrial and laboratory facilities as a separate module for creation of high-quality coatings,” said another MEPhI engineer Andrey Kaziev, adding, that potential customers are enterprises on creation of low-emissivity glass, modern energy cells, and multiprofile machine-building enterprises.