https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.09289
State of the sputtering process in which important operational and analytical parameters are unchanging over a meaningful timescale.
Note: Generally, steady state and stoichiometric sputtering are equivalent but, in profiling dilute delta layers in semiconductors, for example, the sputtering can be at a steady state while the constituents being studied are not being sputtered in their stoichiometric ratio.
See also: stoichiometric sputtering