W.c. Heraeus Gmbh

W.c. Heraeus Gmbh & Co Kg

Bernard Serole

David Francis Lupton

Friedhold Scholz

Jorg Schielke

Marek Gorywoda

Hans Bohmeier

Karl-Heinz Goy

A process for making a crystalline solid-solution powder which involves reacting at least two reactants in a plasma arc of a plasma chamber and blast-cooling the resultant product in a high velocity gas stream to form the powder. The first reactant is a molten metal alloy and the second reactant is a gas. The reaction is carried out in a plasma arc and the products rapidly cooled by a gas stream acting at the outlet opening of the plasma chamber. The crystalline solid-solution powder formed by the process has a low electrical resistivity. If an indium-tin alloy is used as the first reactant and oxygen as the second reactant, there is obtained an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) crystalline solid-solution powder which, when compacted to 40% of its theoretical density, has an electrical resistivity in the range of about 2 .OMEGA.cm. This ITO crystalline solid-solution powder is particularly suitable for preparing an ITO target, with high electrical conductivity and thus high achievable sputtering rates.

Process for making a crystalline solid-solution powder with low

The targets for cathodic sputtering according to this invention are formed of hot-pressed or hot isostatic-pressed indium oxide/tin oxide powder with a minimum density of 95% of the theoretical density and with a sub-stoichiometric oxygen content are known. In order to provide the improvement of high stability and, simultaneously, high sputtering rate, it is proposed according to the invention that the target have a crystalline phase which is formed as a solid solution of indium oxide and tin oxide with a minimum of 90% by weight, preferably a minimum of 97%, of the solid solution, and which has an average grain size ranging from 2 .mu.m to 20 .mu.m. In order to make available a simple and cost-efficient method for producing a target consisting of a starting powder of indium oxide/tin oxide, which allows for a precise setting of the oxygen content and a homogeneous chemical composition throughout the entire target volume, it is proposed that a starting powder be used that is produced by oxidizing finely distributed indium tin metal.

Target for cathodic sputtering and method for producing the target

Method for preparing a powder in a plasma arc and device for carrying

In order to achieve, proceeding from the known methods of producing a ceramic component by sintering, in which an oxygenous ceramic powder is introduced into a sintering chamber, heated in there, and dense sintered under application of a halogen-containing sintering auxiliary agent, a simple and inexpensive method in which the oxygen stoichiometry of the sintered component can easily be adjusted to a given value, it is proposed to have the sintering auxiliary agent released from a reservoir separated from the green body at a given sintering temperature, the halogen superficially reacting with the ceramic powder separating oxygen, and the separated oxygen or a defined part of the separated oxygen being caught by way of an oxygen getter.

Method of producing a ceramic component by sintering

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Peyrins, France

Bernard Serole