1. Lab Description and Capabilities

  • Provides a versatile chamber for depositions of metal, metal oxide, and some ceramic films
  • Deposition by physical vapor deposition or sputtering
  • Conveniently co-located with XPS, Auger, Imaging Ellipsometry, X-ray Reflecitivty, X-ray Diffraction, and Nanomechanical characterization capabilities
  • Dedicated to inorganic depositions to reduce contamination
  • Important enabling instrumentation for various thin film studies and characterization tools

2. Deliverables

  • Rapid deposition of metal, metal oxide and ceramic films of well-defined thickness, e.g. for corrosion studies
  • Deposition near materials characterization suite minimizes contamination
  • Metal films from physical vapor deposition or sputtering to serve as model substrates for corrosion study
  • Conductive underlayers for MALDI-ToF Mass Spec samples
  • Extremely uniform films to facilitate sample structure characterization on nanometer scale
  • Deposition of plasmonic structures and protective coatings for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and nanoscale scanning probe spectroscopy

3. Major Equipment and Specific Minor Equipment

  • Angstrom Engineering Nexdep System with Advanced PC/PLC Automation
  • Two resistive sources and one RF powered sputtering source
  • 700 l/s high pace Pfeiffer turbopump with chamber of modest size provides fast pump down
  • Triscroll dry roughing pump reduces contamination
  • Rigidly mounted quartz crystal balance rate monitors for greater reproducibility
  • Source isolation shields and easy removal chamber debris shields for easy cleaning reduce contamination

All NCERCAMP labs