Deposition and Microfabrication
Additional Information
Designed to augment research important to a variety of disciplines, EMSL's Deposition and Microfabrication Capability tackles serious scientific challenges from a microscopic perspective. From deposition instruments that emphasize oxide films and interfaces to a state-of-the-art microfabrication suite, EMSL has equipment to tailor surfaces, as diverse as single-crystal thin films or nanostructures, or create the microenvironments needed for direct experimentation at micron scales.
Users benefit from coupling deposition and microfabrication applications with EMSL's other mass spectrometry, microscopy, spectroscopy, and diffraction capabilities. Ultimately, this integrated approach supports novel research in EMSL's primary Science Themes—Biological Interactions and Dynamics, Geochemistry/Biogeochemistry and Subsurface Science, and Science of Interfacial Phenomena.
Capability Detail
- Fundamental science – characterizing the properties and behavior of matter on micro, nano, and atomic scales, including bioenergy studies and a "microbe's-eye view" of cellular breakdown
- Catalysis – developing thin-film catalysts to modify chemical reaction rates for applications including biomass, CO2 conversion, and electrical-chemical interconversion
- Subsurface flow and transport – generating a better understanding and predicting behaviors of microbial communities or contaminants (metals, radionuclides, chemicals) within the subsurface
- Analytical microdevices – performing complex, multiple-step processes in integrated microfluidic devices that offer efficient chemical separations, minimize reagent consumption, and reduce sample loss
- Geochemistry and biogeochemistry – preparing controlled environmental interfaces, such as oxide minerals, as substrates for heterogeneous surface organic, inorganic, and biochemical interactions
- Photochemistry – using crystalline pure and doped oxide films to study the role of heterojunctions in photochemistry and photocatalysis
- Spintronics – constructing magnetically doped transition metal oxides that exhibit ferromagnetism at and above room temperature and determining the complex interrelationships between composition-structure and electronic-magnetic properties
- Complex oxides, surfaces, and interfacial phenomena – preparing high-quality pure and doped oxide thin films, surfaces, and interfaces to study complex interrelationships between composition; structure; and photocatalytic, magnetic, electronic, and electrical transport properties.
Refer to the table (Deposition and Microfabrication Capabilities Available at EMSL) for a list and information regarding available instrumentation. In brief, these instruments offer EMSL users the following capabilities:
Deposition:
- Discovery® Deposition System – hybrid system provides multi-target sputtering, MBE, electron beam deposition, and RHEED characterization
- Pulsed Laser Deposition System — can grow uniform, multilayer, or compositionally spread combinatorial complex-oxide thin films
- Molecular Beam Epitaxy — features a customized MBE chamber for synthesis and in situ characterization of novel oxide, ceramic, and mineral materials as crystalline films.
Microfabrication:
- Aligning Wafer Bonder — heat, pressure, oxygen plasma, and electric field combination welds multiple wafers
- Deep Reactive Ion Etching System — bores patterns into silicon and glass substrates as small as a few tens of nanometers with a large aspect ratio
- Direct-write Lithography System — creates the photomask or can directly pattern features on varied substrates
- Dual Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscopy — combines FIB and SEM for high-resolution microscopy, as well as fabrication and manipulation of structures at the nano scale
- Photomask Aligner — provides ultraviolet light source for photolithographic patterning and enables alignment of features for multilayer devices
- Rapid Thermal Annealing Furnace — quickly heats wafers in gases to facilitate chemical reactions and grow thin films
- Thermal and UV Nanoimprint Lithography System — uses pressure, heat, or light to transfer patterns from a master to another substrate.
EMSL's microfabrication instruments are housed within an existing Class 1000 (ISO 14644-1 Class 6) certified clean room that circulates prefiltered air to minimize any airborne contamination.
All Related Publications Related Publications
- Effect of combined local variations in elastic and inelastic energylosses on the morphology of tracks in ion-irradiated materials.
- Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging Signatures for Security Applications.
- Oxidative Dissolution of UO2 in a Simulated Groundwater Containing Synthetic Nanocrystalline Mackinawite.
- Identification of Fragile Microscopic Structures during Mineral Transformations in Wet Supercritical CO2.
- Photoemission Electron Microscopy of a Plasmonic Silver Nanoparticle Trimer.
All Related Research Highlights Related Research Highlights
- Predictive models of environmental reaction kinetics made more accurate, scalable (Scaled up)
- Sulfide and iron work together to reveal a new path for radionuclide sequestration (Sulfur cleans up)
- Scientists gain first quantitative insights into electron transfer from minerals to microbes (Tunable transfer)
- First view of micellar bundles revealed by EMSL electron microscopy tools, techniques (Micelle microscopy)
- EMSL’s Chinook provides a new angle for validating pore-scale flow simulations (Go with the flow)
