Hardware and power management for high power impulse magnetron sputtering

The work that led to the development of the HiPIMS technique was initiated at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) in the late 1960s, where high power pulses were applied to diode sputter sources. Magnetic confinement was added in the 1980s, and the high power pulsed magnetron technique was developed into various applications, including electron emitters. A pre-ionized HiPIMS discharge was reported in the early 1990s and demonstrated as a tool to deposit thin films and for ion-stimulated etching. The first HiPIMS power supplies utilized a high power thyristor and a rather small capacitor that was charged through a diode circuit from a 50-Hz (or a transformer) source and discharged through an inductor. In the past two decades, there has been a significant improvement of the pulsing technology. These improvements include the introduction of the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) as a high power switch along with larger capacitors or capacitor banks and more sophisticated arc handling. These developments have led to improvements in the discharge voltage and current waveforms, as well as allowing variation of the repetition frequency, and a better defined pulse length. In this chapter we review the historical as well as technological development of the high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) technique and discuss the various high power pulsers developed over the years.