Rafael Alvarez, Aurelio Garcia-Valenzuela, Carmen Lopez-Santos, Francisco J. Ferrer, Victor Rico, Elena Guillen, Mercedes Alcon-Camas, Ramon Escobar-Galindo, Agustin R. Gonzalez-Elipe, Alberto Palmero
Plasma Processes and Polymers, Early Wiew (2016)
doi: 10.1002/ppap.201600019

Target poisoning in reactive magnetron sputtering deposition of thin films is an undesired phenomenon, well known for causing a drastic fall of the process efficiency. We demonstrate that when this technique is operated at oblique angles, films with composition raging from pure metallic to stoichiometric compound can be grown in non-poisoned conditions, thus avoiding most of the associated drawbacks. We have employed amorphous TiO_x, although the presented results can be easily extrapolated to other materials and conditions. It is found that the proposed method improves 400% the growth rate of TiO₂ thin films.