Tungsten target materials are typically based on high-purity tungsten, sometimes alloyed with elements such as titanium, tantalum, or nickel to optimize specific properties. As a refractory metal, tungsten features a high melting point and excellent hardness, enabling it to remain stable in high-temperature and high-energy environments. Its body-centered cubic crystal structure provides high density and mechanical strength, allowing it to withstand the intense ion bombardment during sputtering without deforming or fracturing. Additionally, tungsten’s good chemical stability offers excellent resistance to acids, alkalis, and other reactive gases, ensuring long-term stability in complex chemical environments.
Another notable characteristic of tungsten target materials is their thermal stability and low thermal expansion coefficient. During sputtering, the target surface generates high temperatures due to high-energy particle impacts. Tungsten’s excellent thermal conductivity and high-temperature resistance effectively manage thermal loads, preventing dimensional changes or material degradation, thus ensuring the uniformity and consistency of thin film deposition. Alloyed tungsten targets, enhanced with elements like titanium or nickel, further improve toughness and processability, making them easier to shape into precise forms while retaining superior electrical and thermal properties. These characteristics make tungsten targets an ideal material for high-performance thin film preparation.
Tungsten targets play a significant role in various high-tech fields, with their primary applications centered on thin film deposition processes for manufacturing functional coatings or structural layers. In the semiconductor industry, tungsten targets are used to deposit gate electrodes, interconnect layers, and barrier layer thin films, widely applied in the production of integrated circuits, memory chips, and microprocessors. In the field of optical coatings, tungsten targets are employed to deposit high-reflectivity or anti-reflective coatings, used in devices such as lenses, lasers, and optical filters.
