Specific Process Knowledge/Thin film deposition/10-pocket e-beam evaporator

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E-Beam Evaporator (10-pockets)

The 10-pocket e-beam evaporator in cleanroom A-5.

The 10-pocket electron-beam evaporator allows line-of-sight deposition of 10 different materials, one at a time. Line-of-sight deposition means that only the surface of the sample facing the source directly is coated, which is useful for example for lift-off. This particular machine was purchased by Nanolab in 2023. It was made by Temescal, a company owned by FerroTec, and is very similar to the other Temescal e-beam evaporator bought by Nanolab in 2018, which we call E-beam Evaporator (Temescal) in the LabManager system.

In both Temescal e-beam evaporators, wafers are loaded into the top of the chamber, called the product chamber. This product chamber acts as a loadlock because 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. Using sample holder inserts, you can deposit on samples of different sizes and shapes. One material can be deposited at a time, and you can deposit many layers one after another.

Some special features of the 10-pocket system compared to the other Temescal e-beam evaporator are:

sample heating up to 250 °C
it is possible to add a low oxygen flow
we have silicon, silica and alumina available for deposition in this machine.

You need specific training to use these special options.

Note that you should only deposit oxides and silicon right in the afternoon of a day before a scheduled service as they can cause a lot of flakes in the machine.

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

E Beam Evaporator (10-pockets) in LabManager

Training videos may be found here:

Training videos on Youtube

Process information

Acceptance Test. 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

These materials are available in the 10-pocket e-beam evaporator:

Plus some MORE

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 110^-6 mbar before deposition starts Below 510^-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

* For thicknesses above x nm please request permission so we can ensure that enough material will be present.

** 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.