A method for deposition rate estimation on a low-cost home-built DC sputter system

This work reports a semi-empirical procedure that predicts the deposition rate on a low-cost home-built parallel-plate geometry DC sputtering system. The method relies on basic equations from plasma physics as well as the use of well established data for the sputtering yield, on argon plasma for copper as target material. In order to validate the results obtained from this method, the deposition rate obtained experimentally for copper deposited on top of a glass substrate, was compared with the predicted deposition rate at the same process conditions. The sputter rate obtained by employing the proposed method agrees with the experimental results.