Patent ID: 9567666
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: C23C,H01J

Claim:
1. A sputtering apparatus for sputter coating an article in a reactive environment, comprising: a vacuum chamber; a sputtering target located in the vacuum chamber, the sputtering target including a target material and to be located over the article to be sputter coated; and a plurality of substantially parallel shields located proximate to the target such that major axes of the respective shields are substantially parallel to each other and extend parallel to a travel direction of the article to be sputter coated in the sputtering apparatus, so that substantially parallel shields are only oriented parallel to the travel direction in the vacuum chamber and there are no shields in the vacuum chamber that are oriented in any other direction; each said shield being electrically isolated and substantially non-magnetic, and wherein each said shield extends from the target perpendicularly toward a horizontal surface of the article to be sputter coated which is located below the target and below the shields and which is travelling in the travel direction in the sputtering apparatus, and wherein each said shield has a vertical depth that is substantially less than a distance between the target and the horizontal surface and each said shield does not extend below the horizontal surface of the article to be sputter coated; and wherein each said shield is disposed in the vacuum chamber at a location suitable for reducing the oblique component of sputter material flux produced during the sputter coating of the article compared to an apparatus that lacked the shields such that a difference between the travel direction tensile stress and the cross-coater tensile stress of the coating on the article is less than about 15%.