Reactive sputtering is a type of SPUTTERING where a target of one chemical composition (e.g. elemental Si) is sputtered in the presence of a gas or a mixture of gasses (e.g. Ar + O2) that will react with the target material to form a coating of a different chemical composition (e.g. compound SiO2) on the substrate.
The following are commonly used reactive gasses:
- Oxygen (O2) – deposition of oxide films (e.g. Al2O3, SiO2, TiO2, HfO2, ZrO2, Nb2O5, AZO, ITO).
- Nitrogen (N2) – deposition of nitride films (e.g. TiN, ZrN, CrN, AlN, Si3N4, AlCrN, TiAlN)
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) – deposition of oxide coatings.
- Acetylene (C2H2) – deposition of metal-DLC, hydrogenated carbide, carbo-nitride films.
- Methane (CH4) – similar to acetylene
Reactive gasses can also be mixed (e.g. O2 + N2) in order to deposit multi-component functional thin films, such as oxy-nitrides (e.g. Cr-O-N) or oxy-carbides (e.g. Si-O-C).
