Computer-aided development of a magnetron source with high target utilization

Target erosion in the straight section of a conventional and a novel rectangular magnetron cathode is simulated and tested. The simulation includes modeling the magnetic field, tracing electron trajectories with a fourth-order Runge-Kutta numerical method, predicting ionization distribution with a Monte-Carlo method etc. It is shown that the conventional and the novel magnetron cathodes yield a target utilization of ∼32% and 67% in the straight section, respectively. We demonstrate that the highly improved utilization is mainly due to a multi-zero-point feature of the magnetic field in the novel magnetron, i.e., the position of zero-point for the vertical component of the magnetic flux density shifts continuously from the inner side to outer side of the target with an increase in the distance from the target surface.

Research highlights
► Developing sputtering magnetrons with high utilization of target materials.
► Using a computer simulation approach to predict the target erosion profile.
► Using the simulation to help the optimization of the magnetic field design.