Fabrication and property evaluation of Al-1 wt.%Si-0.5 wt.%Cu sputtering target materials by spark plasma sintering process

Al-Si-Cu alloy targets were fabricated using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) process for sputtering target applications. Powder for sintering of the Al-Si-Cu alloy compacts was prepared using the gas atomizing process. For fabricating the Al-Si- Cu alloy compacts, optimized sintering conditions such as temperature, pulse ratio, pressure, and heating rate were controlled during the sintering process. Al-Si-Cu alloy sputtering target materials after sintering using gas atomized powder were 200 mm in diameter and 6.35 mm in thickness. In addition, the SPSed sputtering targets and thin films were compared with those of a commercial target fabricated using the casting melting process. The sputtering targets materials having a relative density of 100% were fabricated under the uniaxial pressure range of 40 ~ 60MPa at a sintering temperature of 400°C. Grain size of the SPSed target materials decreased with increasing of sintering pressure at the same temperature of 400°C. Also, the purity of the SPSed target materials was 99.992%. The properties of thin films deposited on a Si substrate using the SPSed target materials were compared with those of the commercial target material prepared using the casting melting process. From the results, the specific resistivity of thin film deposited using the SPSed target material was 4.4 μΩm, which was a similar value (4.5 μΩm) to that of the commercial thin film.