Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The plasma of a high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) system has been investigated using a time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer. The target materials included high sputter yield materials (Cu, Ag), transition metals (Nb, Cr, Ti), and carbon (graphite); the sputtering gases were argon, krypton and nitrogen, and two different target thicknesses were selected to consider the role of the magnetic field strength. Measurements for selected combinations of those parameters give quantitative information on the transition from gas-dominated to metal-dominated (self-sputtering) plasma, on the fractions of ion charge states, and in the case of molecular gases, on the fraction of atomic and molecular ions.