Application of a pulsed cathodic arc for deposition of high entropy alloy thin films

High entropy alloys (HEAs) were highly valued because of their unique and desirable properties. A HEA is defined as having at least five elements in equimolar or near equimolar ratios, and the concentration of each element is between 5% and 35%. HEAs have many desired properties, such as excellent hardness, thermal stability, high electrical and oxidation resistance, and excellent mechanical properties. These advantages grant HEAs to overcome the conventional alloys and be applied in various fields like tools with excellent hardness, high temperature and durable characteristics, magnetic films, and diffusion barriers. While physical vapour deposition is one of the most common deposition technics in the thin film deposition application, cathodic arc deposition was chosen for the current study because of its remarkable advantages, such as high ionization rate and high deposition efficiency. Though cathodic arc has been used widely across industry applications, its application for high entropy alloy has been limited. Therefore, further research and experimentation are required to improve fabrication efficiency. This thesis explores the plasma transportation associated with cathodic arc during HEA deposition. The high-speed framing camera examined the cathode spot motion as it is the primary plasma source. The deposition pattern and ion cross-section distribution experiment were conducted by deposition on the transparent plastic sheets under a range of operating parameters. The effectiveness of the electromagnetic coil was investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the thin film samples on the silicon wafers. Overall, this work shows the different outcomes for various cathode current and electromagnetic coil current inputs to optimise the deposition conditions further