Physical Vapor Deposition (Sputtering)

Made easy with SmartTrak and Compod

With a SmartTrak mass flow controller upgraded with Compod, PVD is made easy.  Physical vapor deposition (PVD) or sputtering is commonly used for creating films of material on a substrate in the solar energy and semiconductor Industry.

In the PVD  process, a neg­atively charged electrode is slowly disintegrated by molecu­lar bombardment. The PVD medium is typically argon because this gas generates sufficient momentum to free atoms from the target. In a vac­uum environment, these free target atoms deposit them­selves on the surface of the material and form the desired coating or plating.

Maintaining a specified gas mass flow rate to the vacuum cham­ber is critical during the PVD process. Typically, vacuum pumping stations require a throttle valve or orifice-limiting device to control the pump's output when the PVD gas is introduced. This method is extremely pressure sensitive and can result in inefficient gas delivery and poor product quality.

Compod automatically com­pensates for changes in system pressure (vacuum pump fluc­tuations) or loss of pressure from the gas source (cylinder depletion). The SmartTrak MFC with Compod delivers pre­cisely controlled gas mass flow rate to the vacuum chamber to maintain high quality end-product.