No. 1162
	Advanced metal sputtering plasmas and their recent trends
	Investigating R&D committee on advanced metal sputtering plasma
	Keyword : sputtering, plasma, sputtering device, sputtering application
	Plasma-based metal sputtering technologies have been widely used for various advanced devices such as Ultra-Large Scale Integrated (ULSI) semiconductor devices, large-area flat panel displays and magnetic thin film devices including hard disk and MRAM devices. Furthermore that technology has been also utilized in other fields such as surface modification for hard coating and so on. However, in comparison with other competitive technologies, there still remain problems in various fields for application in the sputtering technologies. The IEEJ Investigating R&D committee of advanced metal sputtering plasma has made the remaining problems clear from the viewpoint of plasma physics, and investigated recent trends for solving the problems and inovations for future development. The investigated results were summarized by the following three major fields: (1) fundamentals of metal sputtering plasmas and its analysis with laser and mass diagnostics and computer simulations, (2) various metal sputtering devices developed for controlling directions and velocities of sputtered metal species and (3) application of metal sputtering on deposition of functionalized thin films related to electronic / magnetic devices.
	©2007. The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan