Dear Yassine,

It is partly mentioned by some other colleagues replying this post. I
recommend to make longer pre-sputtering sessions "at higher powers"
before opening the shutter. It helps to clean the surface of the target.
It may improve the quality of the deposition. Dehydration of the
substrates before sputter coating may also bring an improvement.

Best,
Kagan


On 2:59 PM, Yassine AEA wrote:
> Cr-doped IO samples have been grown in-house on p-Si(100) by using
> RF-DC sputtering deposition method. The RF is used for IO target
> (125-250w) and DC for Cr-target ( 7-15W). The argon flow is kept at
> 24 mTorr.
>
> Recently, SEM-analysis shows the samples are oxygen rich (80 %), we
> have been advised to buy a new target and to use a heater to keep the
> substrate at certain temperature in one side and in the other side to
> descend the percentage of oxygen. Yet, we are still getting a very
> high atomic percentage of oxygen.
>
> Any suggestion, idea will be great.
>
> thanks,
> Yassine,Ait El Aoud
> UML,MA