Design and construction of high sensitive UHV-microbalance with ion gun and its application to absolute measurement of sputtering yield

A combined system of microbalance and ion gun was designed and constructed to measure absolute sputtering yield with high accuracy. The small-sized ion gun with Einzel lens operated with electron impact ionization source was directly connected to the ultrahigh vacuum microbalance system with a sensitivity of 4 x 10-7 g/div. The measurement of sputtering yield could be performed in a remarkably short time using high current density of argon ions up to 0.5 mA/cm2 at a pressure of 6 x 10-2 Pa. The sputtering yields of polycrystalline gold foil with low energy argon ions (360 - 1210 eV) were obtained with an accuracy of +-8% by weight loss of 10 - 100 μg within one hour for each measurement. The capability of this new combined system was examined and evaluated from various aspects. (author)