Electrical characteristics of a hot-target HiPIMS discharge in reactive N 2 /Ar environment

In this work, we study the effects introduced by adding reactive gas (nitrogen) to a magnetron discharge with a thermally insulated chromium target from the point of view of its electrical parameters. The dependences of the current-voltage characteristics and the shapes of the current and voltage pulses of a high-current pulsed magnetron discharge on the reaction gas flow are studied. The voltage and current waveforms exhibit a transition into unstable mode with increasing the reactive gas flow and pulse duration. In this mode, in power-regulation regime of the power supply, the pulses follow certain recurring patterns characterized by the current oscillations in a wide range from several to tens of amps