Pure Tech Announces PureCON™

By: Christopher D. Pakrad, PVD Product Manager

Pure Tech is introducing a new line of UHV compatible thin film deposition materials. These products have been engineered as a UHV materials solution for GMR thin film head production, as well as MRAM applications. PureCON™ materials have been purified to reduce the gaseous impurities to extremely low levels. At the same time, further metallic impurity reductions have also been achieved. These improvements have been implemented without sacrificing consistently fine grain size. The net result yields sputtering targets optimal not only for current thin film deposition equipment, but also for use in future generation UHV deposition tools.

Pure Tech has been manufacturing thin film materials for GMR recording heads since they first came to market. The PureCON™ line reduces the metallic and gaseous impurities of our standard GMR materials. This new line consists of three product categories, which are Pure Elements, Vacuum Melted Alloys, and Vacuum Melted Hybrid Materials.

Base metals have been produced by Pure Tech since our inception. Advanced vacuum and inert gas processing techniques guarantee the purity of our base metal products. Through proprietary purification techniques we have been able to optimize our base metals for use in UHV deposition chambers. Specific materials offered in the PureCON™ line will be Tantalum, Aluminum, Copper, Chromium, Cobalt, Nickel, Ruthenium, and Rhodium.

Vacuum Melted Alloys are a specialty of Pure Tech. Our years of experience in this field allow us to offer magnetic alloys with consistently low permeability. Both our magnetic and non-magnetic alloys are produced with reduced grain sizes yielding a homogenous microstructure. Utilizing custom vacuum melting techniques to reduce gaseous impurities is the basis for this new product line. Specific materials offered in the PureCON™ line will be Ni/Fe, Co/Fe, Ni/Fe/Cr, Ni/Fe/Co, Co/Pt, Co/Cr/Pt, Mn/Fe, and Mn/Ni.

Vacuum Melted Hybrid Materials are unique to Pure Tech. This process yields targets with high corrosion resistance and excellent compositional uniformity. This is an advantage over standard vacuum cast materials, which display significant compositional variation and extremely large grains. Precise control, under vacuum and inert atmosphere, of raw materials to final product is critical to our HYBRID processed materials. Specific materials offered in the PureCON™ line will be Mn/Pt, Mn/Ir, Mn/Pd/Pt, Mn/Cr/Pt, and Mn/Rh/Ru.

For more information regarding the PureCON™ line of materials please contact a Pure Tech Sales Engineer today.