For more information contact:
John Toon, Research News & Publications Office
Contact John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu
404-894-6986
Equipment Purchased in 1957 Still Going Strong
50-year-old vacuum evaporator is a "clean room classic"
Atlanta (November 20, 2007) — A 1957 classic sits in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) clean room. It’s not a Chevy, but a Veeco vacuum evaporator more than six feet tall and five feet wide.
The evaporator, still in use today, deposits thin films necessary for microfabrication processes. Applications include creating the reflective or anti-reflective coatings on optics and building up layers of insulators, semiconductors and conductors to form integrated electronic circuits.
"It’s a very rugged machine and it’s gotten better with age,” said Mike Harris, a principal research engineer in GTRI’s Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory. Harris first used the Model 775 evaporator in 1972 as a student.
The system operates by evaporating a source material, such as a metal, in a high vacuum, allowing vapor particles to travel directly to a target object, such as a semiconductor, where they condense back to a solid state and form a thin film of the source material.
Harris attributes the machine’s longevity to its design and documentation - and to the skills of GTRI technicians and engineers. “The operator and maintenance manuals are excellent, with exploded views of the various piece parts, making it very easy for our technicians and engineers to repair it when we have problems,” he explained.
In addition to repairing the system, GTRI engineers have upgraded and modified the evaporator several times since it was purchased.
First, they changed the high vacuum pump from a diffusion pump to a more modern cryogenic pump in 2002. The diffusion pump generated a high speed jet of vapor by boiling fluid and directing the vapor in the pump throat down into the bottom of the pump and out the exhaust. The newer cryogenic pump traps gases and vapors by condensing them on a cold surface.
To increase the uniformity of results, GTRI researchers added a planetary substrate fixture that rotates inside the evaporation chamber.
In addition, the original system was designed with a tungsten filament that was heated to a high enough temperature so that the source material placed in a crucible on the filament evaporated. GTRI engineers changed this to an electron beam evaporator that fires a high-energy beam from an electron gun to boil a small spot of material, allowing lower vapor pressure materials to be deposited.
Since the 1957 system still runs and remains optimal for numerous applications, Harris sees no reason to buy a new one. “New systems like this probably cost between $700,000 and $1 million,” he added. “And the new systems are designed primarily for throughput and that’s not necessarily best for a research environment.”
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Vogel (404-385-3364); E-mail: (avogel@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Mike Harris (404-407-6015); E-mail: (mike.harris@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: Abby Vogel
Related Link
Georgia Tech Research Institute
http://www.gtri.gatech.edu
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's more than 20,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
