Ion beam sputtering of Ti: Influence of process parameters on angular and energy distribution of sputtered and backscattered particles

•Ion beam sputter deposition under systematic variation of process parameters.•Angular and energy distribution of secondary particles.•Interaction between incorporated and impinging process gas.•Measured data compared with simulations. In the present study, the influence of ion energy and geometrical parameters onto the angular and energy distribution of secondary particles for sputtering a Ti target with Ar ions is investigated. The angular distribution of the particle flux of the sputtered Ti atoms was determined by the collection method, i.e. by growing Ti films and measuring their thickness. The formal description of the particle flux can be realized by dividing it into an isotropic and an anisotropic part. The experimental data show that increasing the ion energy or decreasing the ion incidence angle lead to an increase of the isotropic part, which is in good agreement with basic sputtering theory. The energy distribution of the secondary ions was measured using an energy-selective mass spectrometer. The energy distribution of the sputtered target ions shows a maximum at an energy between 10eV and 20eV followed by a decay proportional to E−n, which is in principle in accordance with Thompson’s theory, followed by a high energetic tail. When the sum of incidence angle and emission angle is increased, the high-energetic tail expands to higher energies and an additional peak due to direct sputtering events may occur. In the case of backscattered primary Ar ions, a maximum at an energy between 5eV and 10eV appears and, depending on the scattering geometry, an additional broad peak at a higher energy due to direct scattering events is observed. The center energy of the additional structure shifts systematically to higher energies with decreasing scattering angle or increasing ion energy. The experimental results are compared to calculations based on simple elastic two-particle-interaction theory and to simulations done with the Monte Carlo code SDTrimSP. Both confirm in principle the experimental findings.