A comparison between DCMS, HiPIMS and a novel ‘HiPIMS+Kick’ deposition for piezoelectric thin-films

High power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) has been shown to improve optical and semi-conductor thin-film coatings through increased density [1], crystallinity and more control over deposition parameters [2]. Here, HiPIMS and, a new technique, HiPIMS + `Kick' are investigated in relation to deposited piezoelectric coatings and compared with a standard DCMS coating. To assess improvements for acoustic generation, these films have been characterized using SEM and XRD techniques for material parameters, simulations have been done to model acoustic output and further work is to be done to find d33 parameters.