Supersonic Cluster-beam deposition
The cluster-beam deposition and fabrication laboratory is equipped with two SCBD apparata. The first is a stand alone machine with a “classic” configuration consisting in two vacuum chambers of about 20 and 30 dm^3 (expansion and deposition chambers) connected through a pneumatic gate valve and separately pumped down to about 10^-6 mbar. A single PMCS can be faced to the expansion chamber. The deposition chamber hosts a 3-axes motorized manipulator with a 6 sides carousel sample holder equipped with a microbalance. The second is a multi-beam apparatus with a 100dm^3 deposition chamber that accepts beams from different sources. The source(s) can be mounted directly on the deposition chamber or through deposition lines consisting of one or more vacuum chambers. One of these lines, consisting of a 25 dm^3 chamber, is permanently connected to it through a pneumatic gate valve. It hosts two PMCSs with beams intersecting at the center of the deposition chamber, hence designed for co-deposition. Each chamber can be separately pumped down to about 10^-6 mbar by a TM/Roots/Scroll pumping chain. The deposition chamber also hosts an ion beam sputtering source to assist and integrate SCBD sources. It has a 4-axes motorized manipulator that can include two further in-vacuum motors for specific tasks (i.e. satellite rotation). The chamber is also equipped with a microbalance, a thermocouple and different feedthroughs (electrical, gas, liquid…) to allow for temperature treatments, gas exposure, plasma etching etc.
Referent: Claudio Piazzoni