Magnetron reactive sputtering insulator looks easy, but the actual operation is difficult. The main problem is that the reactions occur not only on the surface of the parts, but also on the anode, the vacuum chamber, and the target source. Thus cause fire extinguishing, target material source and workpiece surface arc. German Leboa’s invention of twin target source technology is a good solution to this problem. The principle is that a pair of target sources is anode and cathode to eliminate the anodic surface oxidation or nitriding.
Cooling is necessary for all sources (magnetically controlled, multi-arc, ionic) because a large part of the energy is converted to heat, which, without or without cooling, will melt the entire target source to a temperature of more than 1,000 degrees.
A magnetic control device is often very expensive, but people tend to spend money on other equipment such as vacuum pump, MFC, film thickness measurement and ignore the target source. It is a good magnetron sputtering equipment if there is no good target source, like dragon without eyes.
The advantages of medium frequency sputtering are smooth and compact, high hardness of the film layer, linear growth of the film thickness, no poisoning, moderate temperature rise, but the requirements of the equipment are higher, the working pressure range is very narrow, all kinds of control requirements require fast and accurate.
Multi-arc sputtering applies a small voltage and a large current on the target material to ionize the material (positively charged particles), so as to hit the substrate (negatively charged particles) at high speed and deposit, forming a dense film hard film. Mainly used for wear and corrosion resistant film. Its disadvantages are positive and negative impact caused by uneven film layer, cavitation, ablation.
