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 mercu ...

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

electron ionization Electron ionization (EI, formerly known as electron impact ionization and electron bombardment ionization) is an ionization method in which energetic electrons interact with solid or gas phase atoms or molecules to produce ions. EI was one of t ...

, field ionization ( Penning ion source) or cathodic arc 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—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon ma ...

ion deposition. Molecular ion beam deposition employs electrospray ionization or MALDI 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 fa ...

. 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. 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 equ ...

See also