Thin film synthesis using miniature pulsed metal vapor vacuum arc plasma guns

Metallic coatings can be fabricated using the intense plasma generated by the metal vapor vacuum arc. We have made and tested an embodiment of vacuum arc plasma source that operates in a pulsed mode, thereby acquiring precise control over the plasma flux and so also over the deposition rate, and that is in the form of a miniature plasma gun, thereby allowing deposition of metallic thin films to be carried out in confined spaces and also allowing a number of such guns to be clustered together. This paper describes the plasma guns and their operation in this application, and present examples of some of the thin film structures we have fabricated, including yttrium and platinum films of thicknesses from a few hundred Angstroms up to 1 micron and an yttrium-cobalt multilayer structure of layer thickness about 100 Angstroms