| AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Vacuum Technology | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session VT-TuP |
| Session: | Vacuum Technology Posters and Student-Built Vacuum Systems Poster Competition |
| Presenter: | H. V Nampoori, University of Alabama |
| Authors: | H. V Nampoori, University of Alabama G.J. Mankey, University of Alabama |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Construction and implementation of a multi-target magnetron sputtering system with substrate carousel is reported in this poster. The system has four magnetrons arranged on a circle and facing up, to enable deposition of multilayers for applications such as magnetic media, tunnel junctions and MRAM devices.
Up to twelve substrates can be loaded into the system on a rotating carousel. In addition, a lifter assembly can be used to move samples between positions on the carousel fitted with shadow masks. The bottom up sputtering is achieved in stainless-steel, bell-jar chamber with a rotary vane pump and Cryotorr 8 combination. With internal bake-out heaters using two 600 W halogen bulbs, a base pressure of 2 x 10-8 Torr is achieved. Argon pressure during sputtering is controlled using a MKS flow controller and Adaptorr butterfly valve with a Baratron gauge. Each magnetron has a shutter controlled by a Durant programmable timer. Substrate heating during deposition could be achieved using a 150 W halogen projector lamp located above each magnetron source. A quartz crystal microbalance thickness monitor can be used to determine the deposition rate for each gun. In addition, the carousel has integrated permanent magnets designed to grow magnetic thin films with induced uniaxial anisotropy.
This poster will describe the motivation and design of the system and present some preliminary results. The results will highlight the uniqueness of the system design for a manually-operated, simple and user-friendly machine.
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation MRSEC Grant DMR-0213985.