Investigation of reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering processes using various target material-reactive gas combinations

► Ti-O2, Ti-CO2, Cr-O2, Cr-C2H4, Al-O2, Zn:Al-O2 reactive (R) HIPIMS processes. ► The features of hysteresis loops depend on a particular metal-reactive gas pair. ► Hysteresis in R HIPIMS is more pronounced for the gases that have high chemical affinity for a target.