Metal finishing Q&As since 1989

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How to make copper stick to silicon/titanium nitrite with good adhesion

I am trying to get copper to stick to silicon or titanium nitrite. For some reason it peels of during tape test. I am using a thermal deposition with a vacuum of 4*10^-8. I need ideas on how to promote adhesion. I have already tried using a thin layer of chromium/titanium as an adhesion promoter.

Joseph Zinsmeyer
Texas Tech University - Lubbock, Texas
 

You need to do two things to make it stick. First, you need to sputter clean the parts before deposition. The easiest way is to bias the parts to around 1 kV negative, then put in argon gas to a pressure of ~10 mTorr. You need to be careful -- you want a glow discharge, not an arc.

After you've sputter cleaned the part for fifteen minutes or so, turn on the evaporator and deposit the metal. The ion bombardment from the glow discharge will help with adhesion. If this doesn't work, you need to look at enhancing the ion bombardment, maybe with an auxiliary plasma source.

As an alternative, you can use an ion beam for both the sputter cleaning and the deposition assistance.

Jim Treglio - scwineryreview.com
PVD Consultant & Wine Lover - San Diego,
California