In this work, the role of adding nitrogen gas to the discharge gas mixture containing argon was studied by introducing the electrical characteristics of plasma generated between two closed-field unbalanced magnetron electrodes. This role was also related to the presence and absence of magnetron at the electrodes in the fundamental design of such sputtering system. The role of nitrogen gas added to the gas mixture was reasonably observed by enhancing the electrical characteristics of the glow discharge plasma generated between the dual CFUBM electrodes. Adding nitrogen caused to increase the concentration of the charged particles produced by collisional ionization in discharge volume as the mean free path of primary discharge electrons was reduced. A relative reduction in electron temperature was observed as a result of adding nitrogen with increase in electron and ion densities while no observed difference was observed in the ion temperature due to their larger masses compared to those of electrons.

Physical vapor deposition --- Plasma sputtering --- Paschen’s law --- Glow discharge