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Cleanroom and Processing Laboratory

The Cleanroom and Processing Lab is located in Hill Hall along with the Synthesis Lab and Chemical Vapor Deposition Lab. The labs constitute a unique, co-located exploratory materials synthesis, deposition, and processing capabilities. The Cleanroom is Class 1000 with photolithographic tools for substrates up to 3" (76 mm) diameter and features down to 2 um. It has an adjacent Class 10000 Processing Lab with processing equipment for making electronic devices. The lab supports our PHGN/CHEN435 and CHEN/PHGN/MLGN535 Interdisciplinary Microelectronics Processing Laboratory class and support laboratory research.

Instruments

  1. Denton Thermal Evaporation Chamber

    The thermal evaporator is our "workhorse" general purpose thin film deposition system. It was originally manufactured by Denton, but it has been heavily modified over the years. It is a diffusion pumped bell jar chamber with three evaporator stations in the base plate. The chamber can reach pressures in the low 10-6 range after 1-2 hours of pumping. The chamber does not presently have a liquid nitrogen cold trap because its original trap developed a vacuum leak. A new or repaired cold trap would likely reduce the chamber's base pressure to the low 10-7 range.

  2. Four-Point Probe

    The four point probe is a quick way to measure the sheet resistance of thin films on insulating substrates. It drives a known current between two probes while measuring the voltage drop between two other probes located between them.

  3. Gaertner Ellipsometer

    The 3 wavelength ellipsometer is used to optically measure the thickness of oxide, photoresist, and other dielectric thin films.

  4. Lindberg/Blue Oven

    Three ovens, one each designated for wet oxidation, dry oxidation, and diffusion. Each of the three 1200 °C ovens has a programmable controller. The ovens are used for various thermal processes including wet oxidation, dry oxidation, annealing, dopant drive-in, and diffusion. A gas-handling manifold equipped with electronic mass flow controllers is used to deliver alone or in combination O2, N2, and Ar. A hot plate and aquarium pump can be used to deliver deionized water vapor for wet oxidation.

  5. March Reactive Ion Etcher

    The March Instruments CS 1701 reactive ion etcher that can be used used for etching oxide, silicon, and ashing photoresist.

  6. Probe Station

    At the probe station completed devices such as diodes are characterized both visually and electrically and the results are displayed by the CCD camera and computer.

  7. SCS G3P-8 Spin Coater

    This programable spin coater is located in a fume hood in the main lab and is primarily used for spin coating films of organic materials. It has speed setting from 0 to 9,999 RPM with 1 RPM increments and acceleration/deceleration times from 0.1 to 25.5 second in 0.1 second increments. Thirty programs can be stored that have up to 20 steps each.

  8. ULVAC-RIKO MILA-5000 Rapid Thermal Processor

    We have two rapid thermal processing units. For ease of reference, the unit on the left has been designated RTP1 and the unit on the right RTP2. These units have a controlled gas supply, but it should be noted that it is shared with the box diffusion furnace so both the RTP's and the box diffusion furnace cannot be run with a controlled gas flow simultaneously. RTP1 has a macor susceptor. We are experimenting with a SiC-coated graphite susceptor in RTP2. It it turns out to be stable, we have three others that will be available for use. Each RTP unit can store 16 programs.