>> We bought stainless steel (grade 316) sputter targets from Balzers
 >> & Leyboldt Singapore. I'm sure they are available from their other
 >> worldwide representatives as well.
 >> With e-beam or other evaporation methods it is very difficult to
 >> get consistent results for depositing alloys or compounds: Because
 >> of different vapour pressures, one material evaporates first and
 >> depletes from the target, resulting in film composition drift over
 >> lifetime of the target.
 >Doesn't the same thing happen with sputtering since the sputter rate of
 >the different species (i.e. Fe/Cr/Ni) is not the same. This is a known
 >problem for NiTi SMA and I would surprised if you don't have the same
 >problem for stainless...

No, as long as your target material is at least a microcrystalline
mixture, not blocks of Fe, Cr and Ni and you don't heat it up to almost
melting temperature in the process ;-) all you do is roughening up the
surface.

The deposited film may have a different composition than the
taget due to the mass differences of sputtered atoms - different
scattering angles with the process gas. Depends on the chamber
config. and pressure, but in "usual" systems you loose the
lighter species.

klaus
--

                        (TEEL)          Tokyo Electron Europe Limited
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Klaus Beschorner                                   Tel +49-7033-45683
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