elina – VacCoat

24Feb 2020 by elina

Pulsed Laser Deposition Pulse laser deposition is a physical deposition (PVD)

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Pulsed Laser Deposition Pulse laser deposition is a physical deposition (PVD) method. In this method, the high-power pulsed laser beam focuses on the target that is inside the vacuum chamber. The target material is vaporized by a laser beam in the form of a Plasma Plume and deposit on the substrate as a thin film. This process can be performed in a high vacuum environment or in an environment with background gases such as oxygen. Oxygen is usually used for the oxide deposition to completely oxygenate the deposited thin film during the PLD process. Figure 1 shows the PLD mechanism of operation. While the equipment needed to perform the deposition in this manner is roughly similar to other deposition methods (such as spattering), the physical interaction between the laser beam…

03Feb 2020 by elina

Plasma cleaning

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Surface Cleaning Using Plasma in a Low Pressure Environment (vacuum) is an economical way to clean specimens uniformly and securely. Removal of contaminants from the studied substrates without affecting the overall properties of the material is one of the benefits of plasma surface cleaning method. Plasma is widely used in circuit industry, including cleaning the PCB board before coating and cleaning the lead frames during the packaging process. Plasma sample cleaning has significant advantages over other surface cleaning methods: Applicable to a wide range of materials (metals, plastics, glass, ceramics, etc.)Eco friendly. This method eliminates the need for hazardous chemical solvents, which saves considerable costs because it does not need to eliminate environmental hazards like other cleaning methods.The solvents leave behind the cleaning process while the plasma cleaner is able…

25Jan 2020 by elina

Carbon coating for EM & EDX sample preparation

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Electron microscopes and analytical methods using X-rays are powerful tools that provide valuable information at the nanoscale of various samples. Some samples need to undergo a preparation step before being analyzed. The first group of samples that need to be prepared are radiation-sensitive samples. This group of samples comprises most biological samples, but other sensitive materials, such as plastics, are also included. The second groups of samples that need to be prepared are non-conductive materials or materials with poor electrical conductivity. Due to the non-conductivity properties of these materials, their surface acts as a trap for electrons. The accumulation of electrons on the surface of these materials causes the surface to become so-called "charging". The charged portions of the surface are white areas in the image taken by electron microscopy…

14Dec 2019 by elina

Helium leak detectors

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Helium Leak Detector, also known as Mass Spectrometer Leak Detector (MSLD), is used to find the location and measure the leakage rate of a system. A helium mass spectrometer is an instrument commonly used to detect and locate small leaks. It was initially developed in the Manhattan Project during World War II to find extremely small leaks in the gas diffusion process of uranium enrichment plants. Helium gas is the most suitable choice for leak detection. It is non-toxic, inert, non-flammable, and also scarce in the air around us, with a concentration of about 5 ppm. Because of its small atomic size, helium gas can easily pass through leakage pores. The only molecule which is smaller than helium is hydrogen, which is not an inert gas. Helium is also relatively inexpensive and is available in cylinders of…

09Nov 2019 by elina

Ultra-High Vacuum Systems

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Since vacuum means no material, what is actually measured as vacuum, is the residual gas pressure in the chamber. Three different units of expression are usually used to express the pressure: Pascal (Pa), Torr, and mbar. Vacuum quality is also usually classified into three categories: Rough Vacuum, High Vacuum and Ultra-High Vacuum. Ultra-High Vacuum (UHV) is called pressure range less than 10-7 Pascal or 10-9 Torr. Classification of different vacuum levels When an ionic or electron beam collides with particles (residual gas inside the chamber), it may deviate from its path, divide or even react with that particle. As a result, the presence of unwanted particles in the system will reduce its efficiency. Mean Free Path (MFP) is the average distance traveled by a gas molecule before colliding with another…

18Oct 2019 by elina

Gettering Pumps

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

There has also been a Gettering mechanism, which has been a pumping method, since vacuum technology came into being. Historically, the first use of this method was in the early stages of making electron tubes. The basis of the Gettering method is the absorption of some gases by some materials which results in their removal from the environment. Getter pumps fall into the general category of Capture pumps, along with cryopumps and sputter-ion pumps. The Gettering process can be divided into physical and chemical categories. Physical Getters are often found in cryostats and Dewars. In these systems, a zeolite material such as a molecular sieve is used to physically absorb and hold water vapor. If, as is often the case, the molecular sieve is placed against a surface at liquid…

25Sep 2019 by elina

Deposition thin films of Organic Materials by Thermal Evaporation for Electro-Optical Applications

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Electronic components based on thin-film organic semiconductors have many applications because of their flexibility and large-scale fabrication at low cost. These semiconductors allow the creation of electronic devices such as OFET (Organic-Field Effect Transistor), OLED (Organic-Light Emitting Diode) and OPV (Organic Photovoltaic Cell) as a new generation of electronics. The electronic properties of the organic molecules depend on the bonds between the atoms. The location and properties of these interatomic bonds determine how light is absorbed and the charge transferred by molecules. The most important of these bonds are the conjugated bonds and how they are joined inside the molecules, where the shared electrons are able to move part of the molecule. Figure 1: Molecular structure of polyethylene and polyacetylene In non-conductive molecules such as polyethylene (shown in Figure 1),…

04Sep 2019 by elina

Forecasting Turnover in the Field of Vacuum Layer Systems

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Studying Global Vacuum Layer Market Report Improves Business Decision Making. The global vacuum deposition system marketplace provides a wide range of opportunities for global manufacturers, service providers and users of the products. This report provides comprehensive and relevant information on the key players in the major global market share in terms of revenue, sales, supply, demand and quality of the vacuum coatings field products and services. The main market leaders are: Applied Materials, Buhler, Oerlikon, Von Ardenne, Shincron, ULVAC, KDF, Denton Vacuum, Veeco Instruments, IHI, CVD Equipment Corporation, BOBST, Mustang Vacuum Systems, Semicore. In the coming years, there is a growing demand for vacuum layer systems in North America and Europe. The costs of industrial squares, fierce competition, the introduction of new products, the rising costs of public industry, the…

21Aug 2019 by elina

Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM)

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

Optical microscopes have a maximum magnification of 2000 times the magnification that is often not enough. To see particles that are smaller than the wavelength of light, we need to have very small particles so that they can be traced back to the target and visualized very small particles. The best particle for this purpose is electron. Electron is a charged and fundamental particle that can improve the magnification up to a million times. Scanning electron microscopy is an efficient and non-destructive technique that provides detailed information on the morphology, composition and structure of the studied materials. The first scanning electron microscope was invented in 1942. It was shown at that time that Secondary Electrons (SE) produced topographic contrast using the collector positive bias rather than the sample. After that,…

14Aug 2019 by elina No Comments

Pulsed DC Magnetron Sputtering

Carbon Coater, Pulsed Laser deposition, Sputter Coater, Thermal evaporation

In the DC sputtering process by accelerating positive ions towards the target material (which is in negative potential) and colliding with its surface, due to the lack of electrical conductivity of the surface to move the charge, the positive charge accumulates on the surface of the target material. Due to this phenomenon, the tendency of the positive ions to move towards the target material is reduced and the sputtering process does not function properly. In the DC sputtering process of the dielectric material, the inner wall of the vacuum chamber is also coated with non-conductive material and traps the electric charge. This phenomenon, called the disappearing anode, causes the electrical charges from inclined toward this nonconductive layer. Due to this phenomenon, mini and macro arcs are created during the deposition…