TABLE OF CONTENTS (General References [33, 34])
W.R. Grove was the first to study what came to be known as "sputtering" (and sputter deposition) in 1852 [35], although others had probably previously noted the effect while studying glow discharges. Grove sputtered from the tip of a wire held close to a highly polished silver surface (the type used for a daguerreotype) at a pressure of about 0.5 Torr, as shown in Figure 5. He noted a deposit on the silver surface when it was the anode of the circuit. The deposit had a ring structure. He made no studies on the properties of the deposited films since he was more interested in effects of voltage reversal on the discharge. In 1854 M. Faraday also reported film deposition by sputtering in a glow discharge tube. In 1858 Julius Pl cker noted the formation of a platinum film inside of a discharge tube, creating a "beautiful metallic mirror" [36].
In 1877 Prof. A.W. Wright of Yale University published a paper in the American Journal of Science and Arts on the use of an "electrical deposition apparatus" to form mirrors and study their properties [37]. There is some confusion as to whether Wright was using sputtering or (gaseous) arcing [38], though it would seem that Wright was sputtering using an arrangement very similar to that of Grove (Figure 5) as shown in Figure 6 [39]. One major difference was that Wright used a swinging balancepan fixture that...
