Basic mechanism of sputtering

Consider an evacuated block attached with a vacuum power.

The vacuum is created at 1×10-5 to 1×10-6 torr. Inside the box
substrate is attached at the lower side. The substrate and block
are grounded so that extra charge transfers to the ground. The
target material made up of Ti is isolated from the block. The
target material is negatively charged and acts as cathode. The
target material is also attached to the grounded power supply
while substrate is positively charged acts as anode. When argon
gas is entered in a measured quantity in an evacuated block, it
becomes ionize immediately. The ionization of argon is due to
flow of electron from cathode to anode. These electrons acts as
primary electrons, that strikes with argon atom. The electrons
ejected from target acts as secondary electrons. Electrons moves towards anode while argon ions strike to
the cathode with high energy and sputter the atoms from the target. These sputter atoms strike to the
substrate placed in front of target and deposit on it. In this way deposition of thin film takes place by
sputtering.

Sputtering deposition
When an energetic particle strikes a surface (the target), a plume of material is
released, like the shower of sand when a golf ball lands in the bunker. This
effect is known as 'sputtering' and is used to produce films of materials as thin
as just a few millionths of a millimeter. The source of the ions might either be
local plasma (diode or planar magnetron sputtering) or a separate ion beam
source (ion beam deposition).
Sputter deposition is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) method of thin film deposition by sputtering in which
a high-purity source material (called a cathode or target) is subjected to a gas plasma (typically argon). The
energetic atoms in this gas plasma collide with the target material and knock off source atoms which then
travel to the substrate and condense into a thin film. This involves ejecting material from a "target" that is a
source onto a "substrate" such as a silicon wafer. Resputtering is re-emission of the deposited material during
the deposition process by ion or atom bombardment. Sputtered atoms ejected from the target have a wide
energy distribution, typically up to tens of eV (100,000 K). The sputtered ions (typically only a small fraction of
the ejected particles are ionized — on the order of 1 percent) can ballistically fly from the target in straight
lines and impact energetically on the substrates or vacuum chamber (causing resputtering). Alternatively, at
higher gas pressures, the ions collide with the gas atoms that act as a moderator and move diffusively,
reaching the substrates or vacuum chamber wall and condensing after undergoing a random walk.
The entire range from high-energy ballistic impact to low-energy thermalized motion is accessible by changing
the background gas pressure. The sputtering gas is often an inert gas
such as argon. For efficient momentum transfer, the atomic weight of
the sputtering gas should be close to the atomic weight of the target,
so for sputtering light elements neon is preferable, while for heavy
elements krypton or xenon are used. Reactive gases can also be used
to sputter compounds. The compound can be formed on the target
surface, in-flight or on the substrate depending on the process
parameters. The availability of many parameters that control sputter
deposition make it a complex process, but also allow experts a large
degree of control over the growth and microstructure of the film.