General Lab Information

Nanofabrication Facility

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The Nanofabrication Facility is housed in a class 100/1000 clean room (5,000 sq. ft) dedicated to state-of-the art patterning and processing of thin films, nanomaterials, and devices. The instrumentation in the facility has been optimized to provide maximum flexibility for its users, with capabilities to pattern a variety of materials over a wide range of size scales, from 10 nanometers to 10 millimeters. The clean room is used to fabricate devices for nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, biomedical engineering, photovoltaics, x-ray optics, nanomagnetics and beyond.

» Nanofabrication Resources

  • High-resolution patterning by electron beam lithography and optical lithography
  • Thin-film deposition by electron beam and thermal evaporation, DC and RF magnetron sputtering, and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition.
  • Plasma-based dry etching and wet chemical etching

  • Electrical and optical characterization of thin-film devices

Thin-Film Deposition and Etch

Reactive Ion Etch

Contact: Ming Lu

An Oxford Instruments Plasmalab 100 uses an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source for the high-speed, anisotropic plasma etching of silicon, polymers and dielectric materials. The system has demonstrated capability to etch vertical walls in silicon to a depth of 300 µm at etch rates of 3 µm / min with an aspect ratio (width of feature to etch depth) of 50:1. A new system of the same model will be installed by October 2010, which is designed especially for etching metal and compound semiconductor materials. Both ICP etchers have endpoint detection capability.

A Trion Phantom III Reactive Ion Etcher is a general purpose fluorine based plasma etch tool for etching thin films generally 1 µm or less in thickness that have been deposited on silicon or other wafers up to 6" in diameter. Many processes for etching thin layers of photoresist, metal, semiconductors, or insulators are available.

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Contact: Ming Lu

The Trion Orion III PECVD system is an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) deposition tool used for the deposition of thin films on silicon wafers and other substrates up to 6" in diameter. Current processes in use include the deposition of SiO2, Si3N4, and SiOxNy films.

Physical Vapor Deposition

Contact: Gwen Wright

Two individual Kurt J. Lesker PVD 75 vacuum deposition systems are available for thin film sputter and electron beam deposition of a wide variety of materials. The sputter deposition system contains has 3 targets for magnetron sputtering, shutter, rotational holder, and substrate heater. The e-beam system uses a 4-pocket electron beam deposition source with automatic crucible indexing. A small Denton evaporator is available for rapid-turn around deposition of metals.

Lithography

The Nanofabrication Facility features lithography by electron-beam, ultraviolet light, and ion-beam methods providing the capability to pattern from 10's of nanometers up to 100's of microns over large sample areas.

Electron Beam Lithography

Contact: Aaron Stein

JEOL JBX-6300FS, NPGS system Electron beam lithography at 100, 50, 25 keV (JEOL) and 30 keV (Helios w/ NPGS) is available with patterning of feature sizes as small as 8 nm. The JEOL 6300FS provides capability for high-speed, large area exposures (1mm+) and sub-20 nm overlay and stitching accuracy.

Optical Lithography

Contact: Ming Lu

Karl Suss MA6 Mask Aligner: UV exposure of resist at 365-400nm wavelengths. Substrate sizes range from small chips to 3-inch diameter wafers. Pattern resolution as small as 1um using four-inch square masks.

Dual Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) / Focused Ion Beam (FIB) system

Contacts: Fernando Camino, Aaron Stein

A Helios Nanolab (FEI Company) dual-beam system capable of simultaneous focused ion beam milling and SEM imaging. NPGS nanolithography system can be used to pattern with either electrons or ions. Further capabilities are: gas injector for electron or ion beam assisted deposition of platinum and TEOS (dielectric), x-ray detector for EDS analysis, nano-manipulator probe, high resolution SEM (1 nm), FIB (5 nm), and STEM (0.8 nm) imaging, and in-situ sample electrical characterization.

  • 3-D Laser Lithography System (Photonic Professional GT)

    3-D Litho:

    This tool (Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT) is an automatic 3-D nanolithography system/3-D printer capable of creating polymer patterns/models down to sub-200 nm resolution using two-photon polymerization technique.

  • Deep Reactive Ion Etcher, available w/Bosch process (DRIE)

    Silicon DRIE:

    This system has demonstrated capability to etch vertical walls in silicon to a depth of 300 µm at etch rates of 3 µm / min with an aspect ratio (width of feature to etch depth) of 1:50. It has a laser interferometer endpoint detector (shared with the other Oxford ICP RIE tool) to help achieving an accurate etching depth. 

  • Dual Beam Scanning Electron/Focused Ion Beam Microscope

    Dual Beam:

    Dual Beam Scanning Electron/Focused Ion Beam Microscope (FEI Helios), capable of simultaneous focused ion beam milling and SEM imaging.

  • Electron Beam Deposition System

    Ebeam Deposit:

    Three separate physical vapor deposition systems (all Kurt J. Lesker PVD75) are available for thin-film sputter, thermal, and electron-beam deposition of a wide variety of materials. 

  • Electron Beam Lithography Tool (EBL)

    Ebeam Litho:

    The JEOL JBX-6300FS is a state-of-the-art 100kV EBL tool providing high-speed patterning capabilities with feature sizes as small as 8 nm over mm-scale areas. 

  • General purpose Reactive Ion Etcher

    Trion RIE:

    The general purpose plasma etch tool (Trion Phantom III) is used for etching thin films generally 1 µm or less in thickness. 

  • Helios G5 Dual Beam SEM/FIB Microscope

    Helios G5 Dual Beam SEM/FIB Microscope:

    Excellent electron and FIB imaging resolution (including at FIB energies below 2 keV). It possesses an array of imaging, analysis, device fabrication, electrical characterization, and TEM sample preparation capabilities.

  • Oxford Chlorine Etcher C (RIE-C)

    Oxford Metal Etcher:

    This ICP Reactive Ion Etching system (Oxford Instruments Plasmalab 100) has an inductively coupled plasma source for high-speed, anisotropic plasma etching. 

  • Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) System

    Trion PECVD:

    This deposition system (Trion Orion III) provides plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of thin films. Current capabilities include precursor gases for deposition of SiO2, Si3N4, and amorphous silicon films. 

  • UV Mask Aligner

    UV Mask Align:

    The system (Karl Suss MA-6 UV Mask Aligner) is capable of exposing photoresist patterns down to 1 micron resolution with UV light at two wavelengths (405 nm and 240m nm).

  • Plasma Asher

    Plasma Asher

  • Reflectometer

    Filmetric F20:

    This tool (Filmetrics F20) is a spectro-reflectometer which measures the thickness and reflective index of thin film deposited on flat substrate. It can handle samples with multilayer thin film.

  • Sputter Coater

    PVD75 Coater:

    Three separate physical vapor deposition systems (all Kurt J. Lesker PVD75) are available for thin-film sputter, thermal, and electron-beam deposition of a wide variety of materials.

  • Thermal/E-beam evaporator for electrical contacts

    Contacts Evaporator:

    Three separate physical vapor deposition systems (all Kurt J. Lesker PVD75) are available for thin-film sputter, thermal, and electron-beam deposition of a wide variety of materials.