Nanofabrication Research Service Center

The 3-Zone tube furnace is a custom system intended for flexible annealing or chemical vapor deposition processing at temperatures < 1000oC.  Process and/or purge gases (Ar, 4%H2 in Ar, N2) are introduced via a manifold into the quartz tube at either atmospheric or sub-atmospheric pressures.  The maximum sample size is 60mm (~2"). 

Our AJA International, Inc. ATC Orion is a thin film deposition system based on physical ablation of target material by five (2RF/3DC) independently powered magnetron sputter sources.  Substrates with maximum diameter of 100mm are load lock transferred to the main chamber on a Molybdenum substrate holder with a variety of features including heating, rotation, Z motion, and RF biasing.

The Zeiss Axiotron optical microscope is capable of magnifications from 5-100x. Digital image acquisition and post processing is available. This microscope is particularly useful for rapidly inspecting the photoresist pattern across an entire wafer owing to the fast translation stage.

Chimera is our 5ft HEMCO fume hood.  This all-purpose wet bench is used for acid, base, and solvent immersion processing (patterning/cleans).  This hood has an N2 gun for drying samples, sonicator, hot plates, and tub sink.

Our Angstrom Engineering EvoVac is a thin film deposition system based on the evaporation of source material that can deposit a wide range of materials including metals and inorganic compounds.  The deposition processes occur in a vacuum to permit long mean-free paths from indexed multi-pocket sources at rates and terminal thicknesses controlled using a quartz rate sensor.

The Filmetrics F-20 UV is used to measure the thickness and optical constants (n and k) of dielectric and semiconducting thin films.  The films must be optically smooth with a thickness range of 20-20000nm.

This oven heats multiple wafers at once in a vacuum environment and exposes them to a vapor of Hexamethyldisilazane to promote photoresist adhesion to the wafer surface.  This is especially important for small feature size or high aspect ratio photoresist features.

Hydra is our 8ft Kewaunee fume hood.  This wet bench is used to house dedicated wafer/sample processing in one of two spinners for standard wafer cleans (H2SO4, NH4OH, HCl, H2O2, HF) and III-V substrate pre-epi cleans (Br, HCl, Methanol)

The Olympus BX60M optical microscope is capable of magnifications from 5-100x. Digital image acquisition and post processing is available. This is commonly used for imaging thin film surfaces for particles/defects, photoresist patterns, masks, and etch residues during processing.

Our Oxford ICP-RIE Plaslab 180 utilizes a 3kW RF power supply to generate a remote plasma of Cl2, BCl3, H2, Ar, NF3, O2, SF6, and/or C4F8 gas species that can be further accelerated (300W table bias) toward a substrate resulting in a combination of physical and chemical dry etching for material removal.  The turbomolecular pumped system achieves a base pressure < 1E-7 Torr and is equipped with chuck temperature control from -110 to 350 degrees C.

This equipment flows oxygen and water vapor into a quartz tube furnace to grow thick thermal SiO2 on silicon wafers with a maximum diameter of 100mm

Our PE-50 Plasma Asher utilizes a 100W 13.56MHz power supply with auto-matching network in a direct contact parallel plate configuration for uniform plasma generation.  Samples up to 5" diameter can be exposed to two different ionized gas species (O2, arranged by request) for high rate etching of polymers, photo-resist, and other materials as well as for plasma cleaning and surface modification.

Our plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) system from Arradiance utilizes high speed pulse valves to sequentially deliver reactants that combine to deposit thin films on the surface of a sample at temperatures up to 300C.  Eight precursor positions (4 metalorganic + 4 oxidizer) and three plasma gases (N2, O2, H2) enable a wide range of films and process optimization.

Our plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system from AGS utilizes plasma decomposition of silane (SiH4) in in presence of an oxygen or nitrogen source to deposit SiO2 and Si3N4 dielectric thin films.  The capacitive coupled plasma reduces the required temperature for deposition to a minimum of ~150degC.

This equipment utilizes a microscope stage, 2-4 micro-manipulator probes, parameter analyzer/LCR meter, and Labview interface to measure CV/IV response from structures patterned on the surface of a (wafer) substrate.

Our AGA Heatpulse 610 is a benchtop rapid thermal annealer (RTA/RTP) that utilizes high power lamps to heat treat thin films and substrates for processes such as contact formation, silicide formation, and dopant diffusion/activation.  Temperature control via PID loop has a maximum heating rate of ~50 C/s and maximum temperature of 1000 C.  The chamber can also be atmospheric purged with N2, Ar, 4% H2balAr, or O2.

The DektakXT® stylus surface profiler is an advanced thin and thick film step height measurement tool.

Our SuSS MJB4 Mask aligner utilizes a 350W Hg bulb with an i-line (365nm) filter to expose substrates up to 100mm diameter coated in the photoresist.  The sample stage and single field microscope head translate in x, y, and theta independently of a fixed mask stage (maximum 5”x5” mask plate) to allow for wafer-to-mask alignment and pattern transfer down to an ultimate resolution of 0.7 micrometers.  This equipment can also be configured to utilize an IR microscope mode to align features on the backside of the substrate to mask features intended to pattern the topside of the substrate.

The Teaching Bay etch station is a polypropylene deck with two dunk tanks, two rinse tanks, one spin dryer, carboy drains, and fume extraction for corrosive chemical processing of 100mm diameter wafers or coupons.  The two etchant tanks are assigned to Buffered Oxide Etchant (contains Hydrofluoric Acid) and Aluminum etchant (acid mix, primary component is Phosphoric Acid).

The teaching bay lithography stations consist of a spincoater in a ductless fume hood to coat 100mm diameter wafers with photoresist and perform soft bake on a hotplate.  The custom aligners accommodate large scale feature masks on transparency slides with a videoscope and wafer stage with x-y-z-theta adjustments for wafer to mask alignment.

The Teaching Bay PVD systems are used to create a vacuum environment for resistive evaporation of aluminum metal onto up to four (4) 100mm diameter wafers.  The subtequent Aluminum patterning is acheived by either liftoff or etch processing to create conductive metal traces used to probe electrical charateristics of thin film devices on the wafer.

The Teaching Bay stainless steel hood is a 3-foot wet hood used primarily for flammable solvent processes (cleaning, lift off)-it also houses a sink for rinsing gloves and labware.

The MRL Diffusion furnaces flow oxygen (O₂) and/or nitrogen (N₂) into an atmospheric pressure quartz tube furnace capable of achieving temperatures up to 1100 ^oC.  These conditions result in the volatilization of n-type or p-type dopant species from a ceramic or spin-on-glass source.  These dopants diffuse into the surface of up to twenty-five (25) 100mm diameter silicon (Si) wafers to modify the exposed silicon carrier type, density, and junction depth.

Our vacuum oven is available for general sample vacuum treatments such as polymer curing or dessication.  The ultimate vacuum is ~25mmHg and the maximum temperature is 200C.

Our EVG 501 wafer bonder system applies pressure up to 10kN and temperature up to 450C to samples with prepared surfaces (specific chemical surface termination).  When the system mechanically brings these surfaces into contact the temperature and pressure sequence activates chemical bonds at the interfaces that fuse the sample surfaces together.

Xanthos is our 6ft wet hood used primarily for solvent and photo-resist processing-the lighting has been converted to prevent photo-resist exposure.  This hood houses a Laurell spin coater dedicated to photo-resist/polymer processing as well as a precision bake plate from Brewer Science.