Growth and structure of thin films by high-intensity pulsed ion-beam deposition

The high-intensity pulsed ion-beam (HIPIB)/solid interaction results in the generation of an ablated plasma (approx.10 ²⁰ cm ^-3, approx.1 eV) which can be used to advantage for the deposition of thin films. Presented are the results of investigation on the deposition by HIPIB of thin films of high-melting metals, i.e. W, Ta, Mo, Nb, as well as of Al and Cu. The kinetics of the layer-by-layer film growth has been studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), transmission electron diffraction (TED) and reflection ellipsometry. The experiments were performed on a TEMP-2 supercurrent accelerator (ion energy 500 keV; ion current density at the target >200 A/cm ² power density (0.7 - 1.5) 10 ⁸ W/cm ²; pulse duration 60 ns; pulse repetition rate 8 - 10 min ^-1). The deposition of the films was carried out at room temperature at a high rate of 0.6 - 4.0 mm/s using (100)Si, (001)NaCl, glass and glass ceramic substrates.