A comparative study of an unbalanced magnetron with dielectric substrate with a conventional magnetron through the use of hybrid modelling

The influence of the differing magnetic field arrangements in both an unbalanced magnetron (UBM) and balanced magnetron (BM), both of which employ a dielectric substrate, on plasma characteristics has been numerically investigated under identical pressures and voltages. The UBM exhibits some interesting intrinsic characteristics with regard to the bulk plasma and the incident flux on the dielectric substrate. A property unique to the UBM is the appearance of negative plasma potential owing to the slightly excess amount of electrons when a magnetic field is arranged parallel to the axis of the bulk plasma in a cylindrical reactor and an electric field is arranged transversely to this axis. The dielectric substrate is negatively deep-biased, as compared with that in the BM, and is exposed to positive ion impact with a higher energy and flux, which will be controlled by changing the magnitude and direction of the external magnetic field.