Back-attraction of ionized metal is an important process in reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering (R-HiPIMS). Here, we discuss the implementation of the metal return in balance type models for reactive magnetron sputtering. We show that the existing description of surface processes needs to be modified to satisfy mass conservation. A new steady-state time-averaged model is presented and used to evaluate the effect of the metal return in R-HiPIMS. The results show that the metal return leads to an increased oxide fraction in the deposited coating in R-HiPIMS. This effect can explain the high rate deposition of stoichiometric compounds deposited in the metal mode of operation that has been observed experimentally.

离子化金属的反吸引是反应性高功率脉冲磁控溅射（R-HiPIMS）中的重要过程。在这里，我们讨论了用于反应磁控溅射的平衡型模型中金属返回的实现。我们表明，表面处理的现有描述需要修改以满足质量守恒。提出了一个新的稳态时间平均模型，并将其用于评估R-HiPIMS中金属回流的影响。结果表明，金属回流导致R-HiPIMS中沉积的涂层中的氧化物分数增加。该效应可以解释以实验方式观察到的以金属操作模式沉积的化学计量化合物的高速率沉积。