Operational limit of a planar DC magnetron cluster source due to target erosion

The binary collision-based two dimensional SDTrimSP-2D model has been used to simulate the erosion process of a Cu target and its influence on the operational limit of a planar DC magnetron nanocluster source. The density of free metal atoms in the aggregation region influences the cluster formation and cluster intensity during the target lifetime. The density of the free metal atoms in the aggregation region can only be predicted by taking into account (i) the angular distribution of the sputtered flux from the primary target source and (ii) relative downwards shift of the primary source of sputtered atoms during the erosion process. It is shown that the flux of the sputtered atoms smoothly decreases with the target erosion.