Patent ID: 11885009
Assignee: UCHICAGO ARGONNE, LLC
Field: Surface technology, coating (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC C | IPC C

Claim 10:
11. A method of forming a superconducting transition metal thin film, comprising:
bombarding a substrate with first ions supplied from a first ion beam;
sputtering by magnetron sputtering from a first metal sputtering target substantially simultaneously with the bombarding of the first ion beam to deposit a thin film onto the substrate; and
bombarding the substrate with second ions supplied from a second ion beam, the second ions being supplied simultaneously with the first ions,
wherein:
the bombarding and the sputtering are performed at a temperature less than 60° C. and in the presence of a non-reactive working gas as the only gas;
the first ions consist of nitrogen, oxygen, ammonia, or any combination thereof and the first ions are supplied only from the first ion beam;
the first ion beam has an energy in a range of 50 eV to 400 eV per ion,
the sputtering is performed at an energy density of about 10 W/in2 to about 50 W/in2,
the first metal sputtering target comprises niobium, aluminum, tungsten, alloys thereof or combinations thereof, and
the superconducting transition metal film is substantially uniform in one or more of crystal structure and crystal orientation.