Niobium metal

Niobium metal sputtering target is a silver-gray target made of niobium metal with high melting point, high hardness, and good electrical conductivity and chemical stability, which is prepared by powder metallurgy and used in various fields such as electronic devices.

Properties

Chemical formula: Nb

Atomic weight: 92.90638

Appearance: Usually a solid with silver-gray metallic luster.

Density: about 8.57 g/cm³, its high density enables it to maintain its shape and structural stability during the sputtering process, which helps to ensure the uniformity of the sputtered film.

Melting point: 2468°C, with a very high melting point, which enables it to maintain a stable physical state under high-temperature sputtering environments and is not prone to melting or deformation, thus ensuring the smooth progress of the sputtering process.

Hardness: Mohs hardness of about 6, with a certain degree of hardness, in the sputtering process can withstand the bombardment of ions but not easy to produce excessive deformation and wear.

Good electrical conductivity: niobium metal has excellent electrical conductivity, in the sputtering process can effectively transmit the current to produce a stable plasma, which is conducive to improving the sputtering efficiency and film quality, to meet the high power, high sputtering rate of the application requirements.

Chemical stability: at room temperature, niobium metal has good stability to many chemical substances and is not easy to be oxidized or corroded, which makes the sputtering target have a long life in the storage and use process, and the prepared film also has a certain degree of chemical stability, which can be used in some environments that require chemical stability.

Sputtering performance: With moderate sputtering yield and sputtering rate, it is possible to obtain good quality films under different sputtering conditions. By adjusting the sputtering parameters, it is possible to accurately control the film’s thickness, roughness, composition and other performance indexes, so as to meet the needs of different applications.

Applications

Electronic devices: niobium thin films can be used to prepare niobium films as electrode materials in integrated circuits, barrier layer materials, etc. They can improve the performance and reliability of electronic devices, prevent diffusion and interaction between different metal layers, and ensure the stable transmission of electronic signals.

Superconducting materials: Niobium metal is an important superconducting material, and its sputtered thin films can be used for research and development of superconducting devices, such as superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID), which have important application prospects in the fields of quantum computation, magnetic sensors, and medical imaging.

Optical thin film: Through sputter coating process, niobium thin film can be prepared on the surface of optical elements, which can be used to regulate the reflectivity, transmittance and other optical properties of optical elements, and to manufacture high-performance optical filters, mirrors, and other optical devices, to meet the high-performance requirements for optical thin film in the fields of optical communication, laser technology, and optical instrumentation.

Hard coating: niobium metal coating can be prepared on the surface of cutting tools, molds and other mechanical parts to improve the hardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance of the parts, extend their service life, improve machining accuracy and surface quality, which is widely used in the fields of machining, automobile manufacturing, aerospace and so on.