Technology Platform CHyN Clean Room Bahrenfeld

Heimerle-Meule PGG 10 Electroplating Instrument

Heimerle-Meule PGG 10 is a user-friendly instrument used for galvanic deposition of an extensive selection of metals, including rhodium, gold, silver, palladium, and copper, except chrome deposition.

The instrument offers electrolyte heating, with 5 °C precision in 30-85 °C interval using a quartz glass immersion heater. It also has a sample motion option in two tanks to improve the plating uniformity. The electroplating system can be fed at the 0- 10 Volt/Ampere interval via stainless-steel anodes and cathodes and set with 0.2 mV/mA unit precision in this range.

The system has three tanks that help to handle three reactions at the same time. Chemically resistive and large tanks are suitable for various process requests, like with 4” wafers, as well as small samples. In case the small samples are used, the custom-made titanium sample holder could be introduced into the system easily. The instrument is mostly used for Cu electroplating in our cleanroom. Other possible deposition metals would be evaluated and integrated according to user demands in time.

Creamet 450 E-Beam S3 Coating System

The CREAMET 450 e-beam S3 from CREAVAC is a high-vacuum coating system that operates with a multi-pocket electron beam evaporator (6 pockets) and achieves a base vacuum of < 5 X 10⁻⁷ mbar to enable precise thin-film deposition. Substrates up to 4 inches can be optimally aligned using a rotating and tilting holder, ensuring uniform coatings. Additionally, three magnetron sputter sources are available, which can operate with RF, DC, and HiPIMS technology to evaporate various materials like Gold, Titanium, Bismuth, Platin etc. Furthermore, an ion beam source allows for targeted sputtering and control of the layer morphology. The gas inlet system enables the precise control of process gases such as argon for sputtering processes or reactive gas-phase deposition. The CREACONTROL system provides precise process control with recipe management, real-time monitoring, and safety functions to ensure stable and reproducible coating conditions.

AT200M: a versatile tabletop Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) system

AT200M is the smallest footprint ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition) tool available on the market. It is well-fitted for tabletop operation, and the small chamber size also ensures a high level of vacuum and small interaction volume during the deposition process. The system is equipped with one precursor and one counter-reactant, and all parts (precursor, manifold, chamber) can be heated to ensure no condensation. The deposition Chamber is fitted for one 2” wafer. Three precursors are possible now, including Platinum (Pt), Hafnium (Hf), Titanium (Ti), and Silicon (Si). In the future, Aluminium (Al) precursor could be added. Three actants are available: H2O, O2, and O3, with the help of an Ozone generator. This allows the deposition of Si/SiO₂, Hf/HfO₂, Ti/TiO₂, Pt, and Al/Al^₂O₃ soon. The precursor and gas manifold can be heated up to 150°C, and the stainless-steel chamber itself can be heated up to 300°C. A moderate vacuum condition is possible via constant and continuous pumping of the chamber during the procedure with a flow of nitrogen gas. The minimum pressure is below 20 mbar is achievable with the AT200M. The typical deposition time for depositing for example standard recipe of 10nm Ti layer will take roughly 20 minutes.

Plasma Enhanced CVD Systems SI 500D 214

The inductively coupled plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD) system SI 500D 214 from Sentech is designed for high density, low ion energy, and low-pressure plasma deposition of dielectric films and low-damage, very low temperature deposition of passivation layers like nitrides. The attractiveness of low etch rate, high breakdown voltage, low stress, no damage of substrate facilitates an outstanding property of the deposited layers of thin film.

The Key Features and benefits include

PTSA (Planar Triple Spiral Antenna) plasma source

• generates homogeneous and uniform plasma
• high ion density (in Ar plasma)
• low ion energy distribution promotes high-quality and low-damage deposition of oxides and nitrides (SiOx, SixNy, SiC, and doped layers.

dynamic temperature-controlled substrate electrode for high-quality layer deposition

• Helium back side cooling and substrate back side temperature sensing

reproducible processe

• fully controlled vacuum system,
• different levels of automation ranging from load-lock loading to the process chamber
• Process gases:  NH₃, SiH₄ in He, CF₄, O₂ and Ar

 FIB-SEM - ZEISS Crossbeam 550

The FIB-SEM (ZEISS Crossbeam 550, is a useful tool to investigate specimens by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in combination with optional focused ion beam (FIB) milling. Furthermore, elemental analysis of the specimen material can be conducted by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The integrated airlock chamber ensures fast sample exchange and short pumping times, accelerating the throughput for the analysis of samples in the high-vacuum environment of the FIB-SEM main chamber.

The SEM part is equipped with the Gemini 2 column, which allows for high-resolution imaging (resolution below 10 nm) of all kinds of conductive and non-conductive materials facilitated by the adjustable acceleration voltage and electron beam current settings. Various micro- and nanostructured samples are imaged with the FIB-SEM, such as nanofluidic devices based on silicon or polymer substrates, porous silicon oxide, zinc oxide nanowires on free-standing nanomembranes, and carbon nanotubes on 3D-printed substrates. Moreover, distortion-free images of large sample areas and tilted specimens are generated by combining high image store resolutions (up to 32k x 24k pixels) with the depth of field mode. Thereby, impressive overview scans can be produced, for example, to analyze the homogeneity of silicon nanowire arrays, which were fabricated by a sequence of electron beam lithography (EBL) and reactive ion etching (RIE), or to view the distribution of neurons cultured on designed nanowire arrays.

The ion beam currents for the FIB milling using a gallium reservoir can be selected from a wide range (1 pA - 100 nA). Lower ion beam currents are ideal to precisely cut through nanometer-sized, hollow Cu₂O cubes, or to produce a cross section of a tube that connects scaffolds for neuron culturing to observe both, its homogenous Al₂O₃ coating generated by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and the axon grown through this tube. Higher ion beam currents are selected to accelerate material removal over larger sample areas. This technique was used for generating cross sections through cellular structures situated on nanowire arrays for inspecting the contact region between the nanowire tips and the cell membrane.

The sample analysis is further enhanced by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) for element identification. This part of the instrument is used to study the elemental composition and purity of thin films and nanostructures, such as superconducting niobium titanium nitride thin films deposited by plasma-enhanced ALD and ZnO nano whiskers grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD).

Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) System SI 500 215 for Reactive Ion Etching (RIE)

The SI 500 ICP-RIE from the company Sentech is a high-end plasma etch system that uses an inductively coupled plasma source with low ion energy for low-damage etch and nano structuring.

The system features and properties include:

PTSA (Planar Triple Spiral Antenna) plasma source

• generates homogeneous plasma
• high ion density (in Ar plasma)
• low ion energy distribution less sample damage during etching at low pressures

dynamic temperature-controlled substrate electrode

• Helium back side cooling and substrate back side temperature sensing
• over wide temperature range 0°C – 250°C

reproducible processes

• fully controlled vacuum system,
• different levels of automation ranging from load-lock loading to the process chamber
• Process gases:  SF₆, CHF₃, C₄F₈, O₂ and Ar.