Sputtering

The Sputtering process is a key technology for material engineering in the twenty-first century.
Sputtering had been observed for the first time about 150 years ago in a discharge tube by Bunsen and Grove. Since then the basic level of understanding of the sputtering phenomena has been refined. The applications of sputtering, however, are still being developed on a daily basis. Sputtering deposition and sputtering etching have become common manufacturing processes for a wide variety of industries. First and foremost is the electronics industry, which uses sputtering technology to produce integrated circuits and magneto-optical recording media. This book describes many of the sputtering applications that are relevant to electronics.
Sputtering processes are also present in many other disparate areas. For example, sputter deposition is used to coat the mirrorlike reflective windows in many buildings. The hard coating of a machine tool is a well-known application of sputtering.
Sputtering is essential for the creation of new materials such as diamond thin films, high-Tc superconductors, and ferroelectric and magnetic materials like those used in random access memories.
Nanometer materials are also provided by sputtering. It is important that the sputtering process is considered an environmentally benign production technology.
In the last ten years, radical progress has been seen in sputtering technology. For production, an example is the high-rate sputtering technology using pulsed DC/MF dual-magnetron sputtering for coating large areas like window glass. Another production technology is the sputter-etching of deep trench structures using plasma-assisted long-throw magnetron sputtering systems. At the basic research level, epitaxial processing of complex oxides such as layered perovskite for high-Tc superconductors and ferroelectric superlattices of perovskites at the nanometer level were extensively studied, and commercial sputtering systems were developed.