Patent ID: 7022209

Claim:
A method for physical vapor deposition, the method which comprises: providing a target region and a substrate region disposed in a process region; providing an electric field between the target region and the substrate region and using the electric field for partially ionizing process gas constituents in the process region, accelerating ionized process gas constituents toward the target region, ejecting target constituents by using process gas constituents and partially depositing ejected target constituents on the substrate region; generating a magnetic field substantially vanishing in one of given regions and given sectors of at least one of the target region and the substrate region at least when averaged over time and rotating the magnetic field about a rotation axis; generating the magnetic field such that the magnetic field substantially vanishes outside the rotation axis in one of given regions and given sectors of at least one of the target region and the substrate region at least when averaged over time; using, as the magnetic field, a combination of at least a first magnetic field component and at least a second magnetic field component such that the first and second magnetic field components are one of directly oppositely polarized or directly oppositely directed with respect to one another but otherwise are substantially identical; and one of generating or providing the first and second magnetic field components temporally separately with respect to one another.