On the Control of Hot Nickel Target Magnetron Sputtering by Distribution of Power Pulses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are a few clarifications needed:

In the magnetron system control, is the magnetron being pulsed on continuously or only during the injected gas pulses?

Line 145:  "...Dora Power Systems DC power supply with a carrier frequency of 125 kHz..." I presume the authors mean a pulsed DC power supply?

Lines 260-261:  "Comparison of the individual spectra leads to the conclusion that the consistency of these results with previous ones is apparent." Which previous results are the authors referring to?

Author Response

Dear reviewer  

In the beginning, we would like to thank you for your time spent for review our paper. It raised the quality of the submitted article. We have revised the text including your comments. All the amendments were highlighted in yellow. Here is the detailed response to your comments.

“In the magnetron system control, is the magnetron being pulsed on continuously or only during the injected gas pulses?”

Thank you for this well-reasoned comment. In the current version of the GIMS control, we use electronic coupling of pulse valves with the power supply. Using this coupling, we can set the power pulse with parameters such as delay time relative to valve opening and pulse length. In the original version of the article, we omitted these details so as not to distract from the main thread. Now we see that the control of GIMS operation is of interest, so we decided to include it in the new version of the text – lines 120 – 124.

“Line 145:  "...Dora Power Systems DC power supply with a carrier frequency of 125 kHz..." I presume the authors mean a pulsed DC power supply?”

Yes. We have added that information in line 149.

“Lines 260-261:  "Comparison of the individual spectra leads to the conclusion that the consistency of these results with previous ones is apparent." Which previous results are the authors referring to?”

In this fragment, we referred to the results of pulse energy calculations. We agree with the suggestion that there should be no such open references in the text. We have corrected this section – lines 264-266.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the enclosed file.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear reviewer  

In the beginning, we would like to thank you for your time spent for review our paper. It raised the quality of the submitted article. We have revised the text including your comments. All the amendments were highlighted in yellow. Here is the detailed response to your comments.

“In the abstract authors wrote “ Tc

While preparing our review response, we realized we had included a very early version of the abstract. Our mistake is particularly evident in the passage indicated, which is not entirely consistent with the conclusions of our work. We regret this mistake and have decided to change the content of the last part of the abstract to the correct one – lines 20 - 23.

“Please keep all the variables in italics. I notice many variables are not in italics.”

We have skimmed the text and corrected all of the variables

“In Table 2, please incorporate the units of wavelength (l)”

We have added the units

“What is meant by “This is the more efficient sputtering of the thin nickel target.”? Please rephrase the sentence.”

We made a syntax error in this sentence. The sentence has now been corrected.

“In the conclude, please mention the technological implications of your research outcome. This is very important.”

We agree with this suggestion. We have taken it into account in the revision