CPM-11 Building A Manipulable Cylindrical Magnetron Sputter System
Abstract
A tin whisker is a single crystalline, highly conductive protrusion from a thin tin film deposited on a substrate. Tin whisker growth has been found to correlate with intrinsic stress in thin tin films (such as those found on printed circuit board traces), and has led to short circuits and large-scale device failure. One means of studying this phenomenon is by testing their growth as a response to several variables in thin tin films formed by cylindrical magnetron sputtering. In this cylindrical magnetron sputtering, plasma is formed in a vacuum chamber by the ionization of Argon by sending a high voltage between two pieces of metal spaced thinly apart in the chamber. A cylindrical magnet pulls the plasma inward to a tin sputter target where the Argon atoms bombard the tin, knocking off individual tin atoms such that they coat a brass substrate below, forming a thin tin film. In this study, a sputter coater was modified to reach lower pressures and higher voltages than those for which it was made. To accomplish this, a nonfunctional turbo pump was made functional and connected to the chamber, and a new electronic circuit was created and added to the sputter system, greatly increasing the allowable input voltage. The modification to the pump and the addition of the circuit allowed the system to reach the desired vacuum chamber pressure and it to produce plasma, though not simultaneously.
CPM-11 Building A Manipulable Cylindrical Magnetron Sputter System
University Readiness Center Greatroom
A tin whisker is a single crystalline, highly conductive protrusion from a thin tin film deposited on a substrate. Tin whisker growth has been found to correlate with intrinsic stress in thin tin films (such as those found on printed circuit board traces), and has led to short circuits and large-scale device failure. One means of studying this phenomenon is by testing their growth as a response to several variables in thin tin films formed by cylindrical magnetron sputtering. In this cylindrical magnetron sputtering, plasma is formed in a vacuum chamber by the ionization of Argon by sending a high voltage between two pieces of metal spaced thinly apart in the chamber. A cylindrical magnet pulls the plasma inward to a tin sputter target where the Argon atoms bombard the tin, knocking off individual tin atoms such that they coat a brass substrate below, forming a thin tin film. In this study, a sputter coater was modified to reach lower pressures and higher voltages than those for which it was made. To accomplish this, a nonfunctional turbo pump was made functional and connected to the chamber, and a new electronic circuit was created and added to the sputter system, greatly increasing the allowable input voltage. The modification to the pump and the addition of the circuit allowed the system to reach the desired vacuum chamber pressure and it to produce plasma, though not simultaneously.