Investigation of ion beam properties and coating material during IBS

Ion beam sputtering (IBS) is a well-established process to manufacture lowest loss coatings of highest complexity of spectral behavior. Nevertheless, the losses due to absorption in the bulk materials are still orders of magnitude lower than in the corresponding coatings, indicating that a further optimization of the process is possible. Such an improvement in quality requires a more detailed knowledge of the correlation between the process parameters and the coating quality. The present paper reports on a preliminary study based on a parameterization strategy for IBS processes. The propagation properties of the ion beam were investigated in detail, where both, the total dissipation of energy and the argon ion velocity distribution of the beam were measured and analyzed. Furthermore, research was concentrated on the sputtered material considering the dependence of the optical losses of the deposited dielectric layers on the physical properties of the adatoms. The energy distribution and the charge state of the material particles were investigated with respect to the implementation of a phase separating IBS process.