Thin Film Deposition

Masters at IISER Mohali | Links:

Thin Film Deposition

An introduction to some of the thin film deposition equipment and materials I have worked with! DC/RF/PLD.

Overview of the vacuum chamber at the Spin-lab, IISER Mohali.

During my time at the Spin-Lab at IISER Mohali, one multi-purpose vacuum chamber designed by Excel Instruments was dedicated for thin film deposition.

Full-width image The system was custom built in order to allow DC sputtering, RF sputtering, as well as Pulsed Laser Deposition . Its various flanges and view-ports with an overall modular design enabled mounting a variety of heaters and target carousels with different configurations

The turbo pump can pump the chamber pressure down to around 1e-6 mBar.

Two separate gas inlets with mass flow controllers are part of this system, and the user can select between various gases such as Argon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Helium.

Substrate heaters with telescopic and rotation control can be mounted, and their PID control systems can heat up to 800 degree Celsius via various heating profiles.

DC Magnetron Sputtering

Full-width image The DC sputtering unit allows mounting 2″ targets over a circular magnet array which focuses the plume. It is water cooled to prevent damage to either the targets, or the magnet array.

Pulsed Laser Deposition

Full-width image Setting up the pulsed laser deposition. The laser is an KrF mixture Excimer pulsed UV laser. Target carousel can rotate and select from different samples.