Direct sputtering

Direct sputtering of the desired metal into an alumina membrane to give arrays of nanotubules has also been achieved. This was demonstrated by Guo et al. [41] where by controlling the sputter rate and pressure of the chamber it was possible to... 

This expression is unusable as it is, but it reduces to some interesting limits for some practical cases. Generally direct sputtering processes are negligible in reactive plasmas with respect to chemical processes, so one can omit the term K, Y, n and then ... 

Thin gold films deposited by low pressure gold sputtering or electrochemical deposition can provide a highly sensitive and reproducible electrode for the preparation of DNA biosensors without the requirement of the cleaning step. However, the thin gold film directly sputtered on a substrate very easily peels off... 

The most convenient (and thus the most common) configuration of an electrochromic electrode is in the form of a thin-layer, compact film, prepared by direct sputtering or evaporation on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates. Other preparation methods include sol-gel, chemical vapour deposition and anodic oxidation. The various preparation procedures and the related advantages and drawbacks are described in a series of recent reviews [8-12] to which the reader is referred for details. 

As a result, the barrier quality of the AlO -layer is improved (see barrier improvement factors for laminates with AlO, Table 21-4 for laminates 4. and 6.). Since the aluminum layers directly sputtered onto the substrate film have a thickness of only 20-50 nm, they replicate the structure of the polymer on their upper side. In general, thin layers of inorganic oxides caimot level out unevenness on the polymer surface, and even in the best case they leave the surfaces rmaltered (Langowski, 2001). 

In situations where the Interaction of the plasma with the growing film may have adverse effects on film properties and where in situ analysis of the growth are required, the direct sputtering methods have limitations. These plasma related problems can be avoided by using ion beam sputtering techniques as described in the following section. 

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