Nickel-titanium sputter target alloy

A method of forming a binary nickel-titanium sputter target blank comprising the steps of:

• casting a binary alloy into an ingot, the ingot consisting essentially of, by weight percent, about 9 to 15 titanium and the balance nickel and incidental impurities, the binary alloy having, by weight percent about 35 to 50 TiNi3 intermetallic phase and balance α-nickel phase;
• dissolving the TiNi3 intermetallic phase into a single α-nickel phase at a temperature of at least about 1000° C.;
• hot working the ingot at a temperature between about 1000° C. and the ingot melting temperature to form the target blank, to reduce thickness of the ingot by at least fifty percent and to reduce grain size of the α-nickel phase;
• and
• cooling the target blank to precipitate needle-like TiNi2 intermetallic phase in an α-nickel phase matrix, the grain size of the α-nickel phase matrix being between about 50 and 180 μm and the binary alloy having a Curie temperature of less than or equal to a temperature of about 25° C. and exhibits paramagnetic properties at temperatures of about 25° C. or lower.

A method of forming a binary nickel-titanium sputter target comprising the steps of:

• casting a binary alloy into an ingot, the ingot consisting essentially of, by weight percent, about 9 to 15 titanium and the balance nickel and incidental impurities, the binary alloy having, by weight percent, about 35 to 50 TiNi3 intermetallic phase and balance α-nickel phase;
• dissolving the TiNi3 intermetallic phase into a single α-nickel phase at a temperature of at least about 1000° C.;
• hot rolling the ingot at a temperature between about 1050 and 1150° C. to form the target blank, to reduce thickness of the ingot by at least fifty percent and to reduce grain size of the α-nickel phase grain size;
• maintaining temperature of the ingot at a temperature of between about 1050 and 1150° C. during the rolling;
• and
• cooling the target blank to precipitate needle-like TiNi3 intermetallic phase in an α-nickel phase matrix, the grain size of the α-nickel phase matrix being between about 50 and 180 μm and the binary alloy having a Curie temperature of less than or equal to temperatures of about 25° C. and exhibits paramagnetic properties at temperatures of about 25° C. or lower.