Partially ionized beam deposition of Ag films on insulating substrates

A partially ionized beam deposition technique which utilizes a small fraction of self-ions during deposition is used to grow thin Ag films (∼1200 Å) on glass substrates. It is shown that due to substrate charging the Ag film is discontinuous and has inferior structural and electrical properties. This difficulty was overcome by using an oscillatory substrate bias so that electron showers are directed toward the surface to neutralize the substrate during deposition. We show that this scheme of deposition can produce thin and continuous Ag films on glass with bulk-like resistivity with a substrate bias of ≳1.3 kV. This deposition technique opens up the possibility of coating high-quality metal films on insulators for optical and electronic applications.