PRINCIPLES OF SPUTTERING
Sputtering is a physical process that can be compared to
throwing steel balls at a concrete wall. Upon impact, the ball
tears away fragments of the concrete, resulting in fragments
which retain the chemical and physical properties of concrete.
If the process is continued, surfaces in the vicinity of the impact
are covered with a layer of concrete dust. In sputtering, the
“steel balls” are ionized atoms. The “wall” is a plate of the
material to be sputtered, called a target.The sputtering process
takes place in an evacuated chamber