TABLE OF CONTENTS Deposition of films by condensation from the vapor phase is commonly called physical vapor deposition (PVD). PVD is accomplished through three main steps: generating a vapor phase by evaporation or sublimation of the material in reduced atmosphere; transporting the material from the source to the substrate; and formation of film by nucleation and diffusion. Examples of PVD include electron-beam evaporation, molecular-beam epitaxy, thermal evaporation, sputtering, cathodic arc plasma deposition, and pulsed laser deposition. These deposition techniques have been widely used in coatings for a variety of electronic materials such as insulator, semiconductor, conductor, and superconductor. These techniques have recently been used to deposit nanometer scale multilayer structures for advanced electronic devices and abrasion resistant coatings.
For fabrication of reproducible and controllable nanometer multilayer structures, the deposition itself, however, can be a very challenging task. For example, the process has to be adjusted to avoid contamination at the interfaces or intermixing. No single deposition technique is ideally suited for construction of all possible nanometer multilayer structures from different material systems. In choosing specific deposition tools, one should consider materials of interests, the cost of equipment and maintenance, and the ease of operation.
In this chapter, we mainly discuss sputtering and pulsed laser deposition for preparation of nanometer multilayer structures though other PVD techniques have also been used for this purpose. For a detailed discussion of other physical vapor deposition techniques such as molecular-beam epitaxy, electron-beam evaporation, and thermal evaporation, the reader is referred to...
