TECHNOLOGIES & APPLICATIONS

ARC-SUPPRESSION DEVICES FOR HIGH-POWER MAGNETRON SPUTTERING SYSTEMS

One of the main problems at a high-power magnetron sputtering system operation, especially under reactive sputtering regimes, is cathode arcing. Anomalous glowing discharge transition into the arc stage occurs due to the availability of inhomogeneities at the cathode, field sharpening, dielectric impurities. To control arcing, it is necessary to use switches with operating time of the order of one microsecond. The most appropriate for this aim are insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT). We have developed, fabricated and tested the arc-suppression system made at coupled IGBT module. The device is connected into the magnetron feed circuit between the direct current supply source and magnetron. The switch control scheme fulfils the following main functions:

Automatic switch breaking when discharge current achieves the limiting value with the following switching, the delay time is no less than 1 ms.
Manual adjustment of the discharge average power by changing the off-duty factor of control pulses opening the IGBT module.

Switch control is made from the remote control panel.

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
Protection operation time	1 - 5 ms.
Energy educed in the arc	no more tham 50 mJ
Switched power	up to 40 kW
Switched operating voltage	up to 800 W
Operating current	up to 50 A
Control range of protection operation current	30 - 100 A

For further information please contact:

Nikolay S. Sochugov
Senior Research Scientist, Candidate of phys.-math.sci.
Phone: (3822) 49-16-51
Fax: (3822) 49-24-10

E-mail: sochugov@lae.hcei.tsc.ru

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