Sputter-Deposited Mo Thin Films: Characterization of Grain Structure and Monte Carlo Simulations of Sputtered Atom Energies and Incidence Angles

Multimodal datasets for materials provide the large amount of information needed for expediting the discovery of process–structure–property relationships important to materials performance. In this Data Descriptor article, we describe a dataset for magnetron-sputtered molybdenum thin films. The dataset is taken from 27 unique depositions that vary sputter power and argon sputter pressure. High-angle annular dark field and bright-field cross-section transmission electron micrographs were obtained from films produced in each of the depositions. Automated crystal orientation mapping was used to derive inverse pole figures from the imaged areas covering hundreds of grains, and MTEX, a MATLAB toolbox for analyzing crystallographic textures, extracted statistics of the grain sizes and tilt. Additionally, the binary-collision Monte Carlo computer program SIMTRA was used to simulate aspects of film deposition. SIMTRA monitors the gas-phase transport effects on the energy and angular distributions of the arriving metal species as a function of the process parameters. The SIMTRA simulations accounted for sample rotation in a true planetary configuration wherein substrates passed repeatedly under a 200-mm-diameter cathode in a sputter-down, co-planar geometry. For the predicted angle of incidence and energy, probability density functions, uniformity maps, and average quantities are reported for different sputter powers, Ar pressures, and working distances. Overall, the described dataset provides opportunities for examining process–structure relationships. The entirety of this data is committed to a public repository in the materials data facility.