Develop a Low-Temperature In-Line Sputtering System for Flexible and Thinned-Glass Substrates

Flexible and thinned glass substrates are two kinds of important substrates but are difficult to handle by conventional in-line sputtering system for mass production. Here, we designed and developed an in-line sputtering system for mass production that can handle these two kinds of substrates. The key of this success is the well heat management of this system. With the method of multiple cycles of deposition and cooling, this system demonstrated the deposition of thick copper film on flexible substrates at substrate temperature less than 120 °C. The thickness and cooling rate for one cycle are ∼800 nm and 0.5 °C/s, respectively. Additionally, the processes of deposition and cooling are parallel in our system. By redesigning the mechanical structure of substrate carrier, the effect of the thermal stress change of substrate carrier on thinned glass substrates is minimized; therefore, our system can uniformly deposited ITO film on large-size thinned glass substrates. The values of sheet resistance, transmittance, and their uniformity are acceptable for industry. Moreover, all the processes of this system are automatic which is ready for mass production.