Gould Inc.

Scott Blackstone

Minas Hagop Tanielian

Robert E Lajos

Robert Lajos

Thin free standing single crystal films can be produced by sputter depositing a layer of stressable metal onto a single crystal substrate, treating the composite so produced to effect stressing of the metal layer which then peels away with a portion of the single crystal substrate attached to the metal layer. The free standing film thus produced has typical thickness in the order of tens of micrometers. The metal layer can subsequently be removed by acid etching or other suitable etching techniques, to leave the free standing single crystal film, having a thickness from about 5 microns to about 50 or more.

Method of making thin free standing single crystal films

The subject invention is a method of sputtering a material on a substrate in which the substrate is first locally heated so that the mobility on the surface of the substrate is increased to a value E.sub.s. A material is then sputtered on the substrate with a sputtering energy E.sub.k whereby the sum of E.sub.k and E.sub.s is greater than the activation energy required for a chemical reaction to occur between the sputtered surface of the substrate and the sputtered material. In the preferred embodiment, the substrate is silicon and the material to be sputtered is a refractory metal such as titanium.

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Mt. Prospect, IL, United States of America

Scott Blackstone