Just a quick note to our customers out there, and potential customers, to consider the reclamation value of the “Spent Target” and scrap material when calculating the overall cost of depositing Thin Films when utilizing targets containing precious metals. These include gold, silver, platinum and palladium as well as ruthenium, rhodium and iridium. Plasmaterials, Inc. will take back any precious metal contain target materials (elemental and alloys) as well as scrapings from the chamber wall, dark space shields, shutter assemblies, etc. and credit to a “Pool Account” in favor of the provider. Since most sputtering cathode designs incorporate a magnetic field component, the bulk of the deposited material comes from within the erosion profile. We’ll let the cathode producers fight out which has the greatest efficiency, but it is probably safe to say that the remaining portion of the unused material is somewhere between 30-65% of the original target weight once the target is worn through to the bottom near the close of the magnetic field or “end” effect. All this remaining unused material has considerable value.
Plasmaterials, Inc. will take any such materials and restore them to their original elemental purities using a zone refining technique in a vacuum induction furnace. The value of this refined material will then be placed into the customer’s “Precious Metal Pool Account”. The customer then has a variety of choices on how to liquidate their account. They may sell the material “At Market” for a cash settlement and receive a check made out to the beneficiary company, use the account to produce precious metal materials of the same composition (adding additional purchased materials if necessary) or simply liquidate the account and utilize the cash value for purchase of any of Plasmaterials, Inc’s. product materials or services.
A complete listing of processing costs and credit assignments is available via. our “Precious Metal Addendum” through your Plasmaterials, Inc. Sales Engineer or by Emailing a request at in**@pl***********.com.
