Influence of Target Current on Structure and Performance of Cu Films Deposited by Oscillating Pulse Magnetron Sputtering
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Your work seams new and interesting but some revisions must be made, as follows.
- I suggest to improve the title such as readers can understand it is a magnetron sputtering method. Also the first two keywords must be united as one keyword. Does your work present only the influence of removed mode or a new deposition method?
- Regarding novelty: Please be more specific about the novelty of your paper. Is this method for the first time presented?
- Please do not introduce abbreviations without explaining them. Example: page 3 of PDF file: HSS. Check the entire manuscript for such errors, please.
- You must indicate data about the apparatus error, where available.
- The uncertainties must be introduced in Table 1.
- Do not introduce any equation without indicating the reference. If not, you must assume the originality of the equation.
- The discussion in the 4.1 Chapter must be clarified: please conclude on SEM investigations base which sample is the best and why. I think that the sample in Fig. 5 (g) is not the best but according to the discussion one can understand so. Please comment and introduce in text the clarification.
- Page 11 of the PDF file: “Therefore, the growth patterns and morphology of pure Al plating prepared under different off-target methods of plating particles are different obviously” – which Al? perhaps Cu – please pay more attention when writing the manuscript.
- When concluding on your work you must indicate the most relevant and optimal results, which must include also the adherence of film on substrate, which is very poor in the case of 13 A deposition.
- Please improve the Conclusions chapter according to the above observations.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Many thanks for the insightful comments and suggestions of the yours. We have made corresponding revision according to your advice. The attachment is the answers and revisions we have made in response to the reviewers' questions and suggestions on an item-by-item basis.
Wish you all the best！
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
- The manuscript entitled “The Influence of removed mode of target materials on Structure and Performance of Cu coating deposited by Oscillating Pulse dc Electric Field” treats with development of new technology overcoming disadvantages of the high power impulse magnetron sputtering. Maybe the authors are succeeding due to their effort. However, my suggestion is to reject the manuscript or at least major revision should be done. The reason for that is the wrong translation. Many sentences in the manuscript are too long and vague. The reader needs to guess the intention of the authors. An example for this is a sentence between lines 157 and 163 “To induce the non-melting thermal emission discharge on the cathode target surface, namely the volt-ampere characteristics of gas discharge in the arc discharge transition region (micro-arc discharge area), realize the deposition particles merely by thermal emission at a small area such as a grain boundary or defect, with the ionization rate, ion density and energy of the plating particles improved without producing large droplets, making it possible to improve the structure, deposition rate, bonding strength and mechanical performance of film.” It takes almost one paragraph! There are as well other disadvantages of the text that reveal a low level of understanding of physical processes.
- Line 127 “the curve tended to be flat, i.e., under constant current increment, the voltage increment tended to be zero” meaning of this expression cannot be guessed! In Figure 2, there is seen close to a linear dependence, a relation of the current versus voltage with varying slopes in different voltage ranges.
- Line 156 an expression “theoretical calculation of Electric field” probably means theoretical calculation of an electric field distribution.
- Lines 167 “the distribution of magnetic induction lines” lines of the magnetic field are used only to visualize the magnetic flux. Most likely is going about of the magnetic field distribution too.
- These and many other mistakes force me to this decision. In my opinion, the manuscript needs to be correctly written in English.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Many thanks for the insightful comments and suggestions of the yours. We have made corresponding revision according to your advice. The following is the answers and revisions we have made in response to the reviewers' questions and suggestions on an item-by-item basis.
Wish you all the best！
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Review of the article: The Influence of removed mode of target materials on Structure and Performance of Cu coating deposited by Oscillating Pulse dc Electric Field
The topic of this research and output might be useful for the Coatings readers. The conducted work is worth to publish, however in order to improve the manuscript the following suggestions should be considered.
Title: It should be written in accordance with the journal's guidelines, i.e. in capital letters.
Abstract:
Line 12: …of thin films.In this…There are minor editing errors, e.g. no spaces between sentences.
Introduction
- In the Introduction, the issues related to the subject of the work are described in detail. There is no consistency in the spelling of the citations. They come in different forms e.g. Kouznetsov et al. 1999 (line 35), 15. Lu C Y and Luo et al. (line 45), G.A. Bleykher et al. (line 63), Alena V, et al. (line 65). Please standardize the records. When quoting, it is not practiced to give abbreviations of names.
- What does number 15 in line 45 mean?
- Lines 71 – 72: …technology (OPMS) technology… Please remove word technology.
- Lines 71 – 75: The sentence is too complex. Please divide them and save them more easily.
Experimental
- The word introduction is confusing. Please use a different subtitle.
- Characterization of what?
Construction and theoretical calculation of Electric field
Figure 4. is illegible (the font in the drawing is too small).
Discussion
There are no references to literature data in this section. Please complete this section in this respect.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Many thanks for the insightful comments and suggestions of the yours. We have made corresponding revision according to your advice. The following is the answers and revisions we have made in response to the reviewers' questions and suggestions on an item-by-item basis.
Wish you all the best！
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
