Ion beam deposition (IBD) is a process of applying materials to a target through the application of an

ion beam An ion beam is a beam of ions, a type of charged particle beam. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing (principally ion implantation) and other industries. There are many ion beam sources, some derived from the mercury vapor ...

. Ion beam deposition setup with mass separator An ion beam deposition apparatus typically consists of an ion source, ion optics, and the deposition target. Optionally a mass analyzer can be incorporated. In the

ion source An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines. Electron ionization Elect ...

source materials in the form of a gas, an evaporated solid, or a solution (liquid) are ionized. For atomic IBD,

electron ionization Electron ionization (EI, formerly known as electron impact ionization and electron bombardment ionization) is an ionization method in which energetic electrons interact with solid or gas phase atoms or molecules to produce ions. EI was one of th ...

, field ionization (Penning ion source) or cathodic arc sources are employed. Cathodic arc sources are used particularly for

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

ion deposition. Molecular ion beam deposition employs

electrospray ionization Electrospray ionization (ESI) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to produce ions using an electrospray in which a high voltage is applied to a liquid to create an aerosol. It is especially useful in producing ions from macromolecules becau ...

MALDI In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy-absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

sources. The ions are then accelerated, focused or deflected using high voltages or magnetic fields. Optional deceleration at the substrate can be employed to define the deposition energy. This energy usually ranges from a few eV up to a few keV. At low energy molecular ion beams are deposited intact (ion soft landing), while at a high deposition energy molecular ions fragment and atomic ions can penetrate further into the material, a process known as

ion implantation Ion implantation is a low-temperature process by which ions of one element are accelerated into a solid target, thereby changing the target's physical, chemical, or electrical properties. Ion implantation is used in semiconductor device fabrica ...

. Ion optics (such as radio frequency quadrupoles) can be mass selective. In IBD they are used to select a single, or a range of ion species for deposition in order to avoid contamination. For organic materials in particular, this process is often monitored by a

mass spectrometer Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is us ...

. The ion beam current, which is quantitative measure for the deposited amount of material, can be monitored during the deposition process. Switching of the selected mass range can be used to define a

stoichiometry Stoichiometry () is the relationships between the masses of reactants and Product (chemistry), products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is based on the law of conservation of mass; the total mass of reactants must ...

. The main disadvantages of ion beam sputtering are its small target area, low deposition rate, and difficulty in depositing large-area films with uniform thickness. Additionally, the equipment is complex and has high operating costs. These limitations make ion beam sputtering less efficient for large-scale applications.

References

Thin film deposition {{nano-tech-stub

See also

References