Specific Process Knowledge/Thin film deposition/Temescal

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E-Beam Evaporator (Temescal)

The Temescal E-beam evaporator in cleanroom A-5

The E-beam evaporator (Temescal) is a system for depositing metals by electron-beam evaporation. In e-beam evaporation, the deposition is line-of-sight directed from the source, which means it will coat only the surface of the sample facing directly towards the source. This makes it very useful for example for lift-off. Nanolab's e-beam evaporators are made by Temescal, a division of FerroTec, and this particular machine was purchased by Nanolab in 2018. It is very similar to the newer e-beam evaporator we have from the same manufacturer, bought in 2023, which we call E-beam Evaporator (10-pockets) in the LabManager system.

A special feature of the 2018 E-beam evaporator (Temescal) is that it has an ion source for Argon sputtering. This can be used either for in situ sample cleaning prior to deposition or to modify the film during deposition (ion beam assisted deposition or IBAD).

In both Temescal e-beam evaporators, wafers are loaded into the top of the chamber, which acts as a loadlock as it can be separated from the rest of the chamber by a large gate valve. Deposition will happen on all samples that are loaded together. You can load up to four 6" wafers or three 8" wafers for deposition on surfaces facing the evaporation source, or on up to one 6" wafer for tilted deposition. By using sample holder inserts, you can deposit metals on samples of different sizes and shapes. Only one metal can be deposited at a time, but you can deposit many layers of different metals one after the other. The system contains 6 metals at a time and the metals are exchanged based on user requests, so please request the metals you wish well in advance.

The user manual, user APV, and contact information can be found in LabManager:

E Beam Evaporator (Temescal) in LabManager

Training videos may be found here:

Training videos on Youtube

Process information

Acceptance Test information is found here. Describes thickness uniformity tests, side wall deposition tests, sheet resistance tests and tests of the ion source for substrate cleaning.

Materials for e-beam evaporation in the E-beam evaporator (Temescal)

Aluminium (Al)
Chromium (Cr)
Copper (Cu)
Germanium (Ge)
Gold (Au)
Molybdenum (Mo)
Nickel (Ni)
Niobium (Nb)
Palladium (Pd)
Platinum (Pt)
Silver (Ag)
Tantalum (Ta)
Tin (Sn) (we recommend using sputtering instead)
Titanium (Ti)
Tungsten (W)

If your favorite metal is not on the list you are welcome to ask if we can develop a recipe. Note that Si as well as SiO₂, Al₂O₃ and other oxides are available on the E-beam Evaporator (10-pockets).

Thickness measurement, deposition rate and process control

Read about how the machine measures the thickness of the growing film using a quartz crystal monitor, how accurately you can control the rate/thickness, and other useful information about e-beam deposition here: Thickness, rate, process control.

Particulates in the films

Read about optimizing film quality including how to minimize the number of particulates in Au films in the Temescal.

Equipment performance and process related parameters for the Temescal E-beam evaporator

Purpose	Deposition of metals	E-beam evaporation of metals Line-of-sight deposition Possible to tilt sample Possible to ion clean samples Possible to modify deposition by Ar ion bombardment
Performance	Film thickness	10Å - 1µm* (for some materials)
	Deposition rate	0.5Å/s - 10Å/s
	Thickness uniformity	up to 3 % Wafer-in-Wafer variation, Wafer-to-Wafer and Batch-to-Batch variation **
	Thickness accuracy	May vary by up to about +/- 10 % Less accurate for films below 20 nm
Process parameter range	Process Temperature	Approximately room temperature. Higher for refractive metals that require a lot of heat to evaporate, see above.
	Process pressure	Below 1*10-6 mbar before deposition starts Below 5*10-6 mbar during deposition
	Source-substrate distance	69.85 cm
Substrates	Batch size	Up to four 6" wafers per standard run Or up to three 8" wafers Up to one 6" wafer with tilt Deposition on one side of the substrate
	Substrate material allowed	Silicon wafers Quartz wafers Pyrex wafers See also the cross-contamination sheet
	Material allowed on the substrate	Silicon oxide Silicon (oxy)nitride Photoresist PMMA Mylar Metals See also the cross-contamination sheet

* See table in manual with max. allowed rate and cumulative thickness. If you would like to deposit more than the limit in the table, please request permission from metal@nanolab.dtu.dk no matter if it is a single layer or a number of deposition runs adding up to a total thickness exceeding the limit. This is so we can ensure that enough material will be present and that the the machine can be cleaned up as needed as thick layers can cause flaking.

** Defined as the ratio of the standard deviation to the average of the measurement made using the DektakXT. For further details see the acceptance test.