Investigation of the compositional changes of a Y-Ba-Cu-O HTSC target under ion sputtering

An Auger electron spectroscopy study is reported of the elemental depth profile of Y-Ba-Cu-O HTSC targets subjected to ion-plasma sputtering in a magnetron deposition system and ion-beam sputtering in the Auger spectrometer chamber. It has been established that the process consists in all cases of predominant copper sputtering accompanied by the formation of a modified surface layer and of a copper-depleted region. This region is assumed to originate from intense copper diffusion from the bulk to the modified surface layer driven by a concentration gradient.