Deposition of Fe/Nb Multilayers and Fe/Nb/Fe Trilayers using HIPIMS: XRR measurements for interface diffusion study

Abstract

Sputtered Fe/Nb multilayers were prepared with Nb thicknesses dNb of 35 Å and with Fe thicknesses dFe of 35 Å and sputtered Fe/Nb/Fe trilayers was deposited with Nb thicknesses dNb in the range 50 Å and with Fe thicknesses dFe in the range 120 Å, respectively using high power impulse magnetron sputtering technique. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measured patterns revealed the high quality of the film structure with a low surface and interface roughness. Nb thin films synthesized with Nb thicknesses dNb in the range 150-700 Å using conventional direct-current magnetron sputtering (CMS) have been compared with those made by high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) operated at the same average power by means of XRR. The obtained XRR patterns were fitted using the Parratt32 software. It was observed that films grown by HIPIMS method have a higher density and interface roughness than that grown by the CMS method. It was also observed that the deposition rate is increasing with the increase of deposition power; it shows linear behavior with deposition power. © 2019 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.