AJA International Sputter Coater Sputter Coater

The equipment can be used to deposit thin films on various substrates. The equipment deposits thin films by creating a gaseous plasma from argon and then accelerating thae Ar ions onto a substrate (target) which one wants to deposit. On hitting the substrate, atoms or molecules of the substrate are eject and travel in a straight line to the sample to be coated. An energy source (2 DC and 1 RF for this machine) is used to maintain the plasma. The machine uses both DC and magnetron sputtering. Magnetron sputtering is excellent when one wants to avoid bombarding the sample with energetic particles. The equipment incorporates confocal sputtering i.e. multiple magnetron sources arranged in a circular pattern and aimed at a common focal point. One can therefore deposit uniform single layers, multilayers and co-deposited alloy films. The machine is capable of reaching ultra high vacuum (UHV). The sources can be tilted to create wedge shaped samples (suitable for combinatorial chemistry). The sample can be rotated, thus ensuring uniformity of deposited films. The sample may be biased by means of a voltage. It can be heated to 800oC (even in the presence of oxygen, since the machine uses halogen heating instead of resistive heating). One can therefore do reactive sputtering (e.g forming ZnO and VO2 films which are difficult to achieve by other means).