Smoothing of Discharge Inhomogeneities at High Currents in Gasless High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering

The discharges in high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) have been reported to consist of azimuthally inhomogeneous plasma with locally increased light emission. The luminous zones seemingly travel around the racetrack and are implicated in generation of the high ion kinetic energies observed in HiPIMS. We show that the inhomogeneities smooth out at high discharge current to yield azimuthally homogeneous plasma. This may have implications for the spatial and kinetic energy distribution of sputtered particles, and therefore also on the thin films deposited by HiPIMS.