Toward decoupling the effects of kinetic and potential ion energies: Ion flux dependent structural properties of thin (V,Al)N films deposited by pulsed filtered cathodic arc

Pulsed filtered cathodic arc deposition involves formation of energetic multiply charged metal ions, which help to form dense, adherent, and macroparticle-free thin films. Ions possess not only significant kinetic energy, but also potential energy primarily due to their charge, which for cathodic arc plasmas is usually greater than one. While the effects of kinetic ion energy on the growing film are well investigated, the effects of the ions’ potential energy are less known. In the present work, we make a step toward decoupling the contributions of kinetic and potential energies of ions on thin film formation. The potential energy is changed by enhancing the ion charge states via using an external magnetic field at the plasma source. The kinetic energy is adjusted by biasing the arc source (“plasma bias”), which allows us to approximately compensate the differences in kinetic energy, while the substrate and ion energy detector remain at ground. However, application of an external magnetic field also leads to an enhancement of the ion flux and hence the desired complete decoupling of the potential and kinetic energy effects will require further steps. Charge-state-resolved energy distribution functions of ions are measured at the substrate position for different arc source configurations, and thin films are deposited using exactly those configurations. Detailed characterization of the deposited thin films is performed to reveal the correlations of changes in structure with kinetic and potential energies of multiply charged ions. It is observed that the cathode composition (Al:V ratio) strongly affects the formation of the thermodynamically stable wurtzite or the metastable cubic phase. The external magnetic field applied at the arc source is found to greatly alter the plasma and, therefore, to be the primary, easily accessible “tuning knob” to enhance film crystallinity. The effect of “atomic scale heating” provided by the ions’ kinetic and potential energies on the film crystallinity is investigated, and the possibility to deposit crystalline (V,Al)N films without substrate heating is demonstrated. This study shows an approach toward distinguishing the contributions stemming from kinetic and potential energies of ions on the film growth, however, further research is needed to assess and distinguish the additional effect of ion flux intensity (current).