Development of new cylindrical magnetrons for industrial use

A number of alternative techniques were considered and tested with a view to the construction of a cylindrical sputtering device. This device was required to be capable of depositing tribological coatings inside approximately cylindrical substrates of diameters less than 100mm, in an industrial situation. A cylindrical magnetron device was designed, and constructed as a prototype, using a magnetic assembly inside a cylindrical target with outside diameter (o.d.) 40mm. Two alternative magnetic assemblies were tested, and found to have complimentary advantages. The magnetron characteristics of the device were tested, as were key properties (such as adhesion level and hardness) of the coatings deposited. In all cases good results were obtained. A 22mm o.d. device based on the same design was shown to operate, but with less satisfactory characteristics. In an attempt to improve the miniaturised design, the feasibility of gas cooling (rather than water cooling) the cylindrical magnetron was demonstrated. A system incorporating four 40mm o.d. cylindrical magnetrons was designed, constructed and briefly tested. This was intended to prove the feasibility of using a multi-magnetron system to reduce the cost to coat. Its dimensions and design were tailored to an industrially specified engine block. In use the plasma rings formed on the 40mm magnetron target surfaces during operation were found to be of unequal intensities, especially on the shorter magnetron design used in the four-fold system. In an attempt to tackle this problem, a finite element model of the magnetic field generated by the magnetic assembly was built, run and verified. Changes were made to this model, and a new .magnet assembly was built and tested based on the results obtained. This did not lead to a final solution of the problem, but has set bounds within which the solution must lie. (author)