Influence of discharge power on the intensities of Ar and Ti in high-pressure magnetron sputtering plasma measured using optical emission spectroscopy

Abstract

In this study, a high-pressure magnetron sputtering plasma was used for plasma discharge with various discharge powers in the mixture of argon-nitrogen discharge. The introduction of nitrogen gas modifies the discharge leading to modifications of plasma parameters and ionization mechanism of transition species. The observation of relative emission of argon and titanium spectral line was using an optical emission spectrometer. The ratio of each species of argon and titanium was plotted and the trend of ionization mechanism was studied. We found that the Ar ion emission intensity increased with the discharge power indicating that the ionization of Ar increased with the discharge power. In addition, the ratio of Ti atom / Ti ion emission intensity increased with the discharge power. The results indicated that the Ti atom increased with the discharge power whereas the increase of Ti ion were not significant.