Ion beam deposition (IBD) is a process of applying materials to a target through the application of an

ion beam An ion beam is a type of charged particle beam consisting of ions. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing (principally ion implantation) and other industries. A variety of ion beam sources exists, some derived from the mercury ...

. Ion beam deposition setup with mass separator An ion beam deposition apparatus typically consists of an ion source, ion optics, and the deposition target. Optionally a mass analyzer can be incorporated. In the

ion source An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines. Electron ionization Electron ...

source materials in the form of a gas, an evaporated solid, or a solution (liquid) are ionized. For atomic IBD, electron ionization, field ionization ( Penning ion source) or

cathodic arc {{Short description, Type of physical vapor deposition technique Cathodic arc deposition or Arc-PVD is a physical vapor deposition technique in which an electric arc is used to vaporize material from a cathode target. The vaporized material then co ...

sources are employed. Cathodic arc sources are used particularly for

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

ion deposition. Molecular ion beam deposition employs

electrospray ionization Electrospray ionization (ESI) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to produce ions using an electrospray in which a high voltage is applied to a liquid to create an aerosol. It is especially useful in producing ions from macromolecules becaus ...

MALDI In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

sources. The ions are then accelerated, focused or deflected using high voltages or magnetic fields. Optional deceleration at the substrate can be employed to define the deposition energy. This energy usually ranges from a few eV up to a few keV. At low energy molecular ion beams are deposited intact (ion soft landing), while at a high deposition energy molecular ions fragment and atomic ions can penetrate further into the material, a process known as

ion implantation Ion implantation is a low-temperature process by which ions of one element are accelerated into a solid target, thereby changing the physical, chemical, or electrical properties of the target. Ion implantation is used in semiconductor device fab ...

. Ion optics (such as radio frequency quadrupoles) can be mass selective. In IBD they are used to select a single, or a range of ion species for deposition in order to avoid contamination. For organic materials in particular, this process is often monitored by a

mass spectrometer Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is us ...

. The ion beam current, which is quantitative measure for the deposited amount of material, can be monitored during the deposition process. Switching of the selected mass range can be used to define a

stoichiometry Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equal ...

See also