Royce Physical Vapour Deposition and Characterisation Facility

Overview

For deposition capabilities please watch our short video:

Please allow social and marketing cookies to show embedded content.

View content (opens www.youtube.com in a new tab)

The Royce Physical Vapour Deposition and Characterisation Facility is a state-of-the-art facility for thin-film deposition and device fabrication. All equipment is shared and owned by the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy and supported by expert Technical Staff associated with several groups across the Department including the DMG, CMP, WEMs and 2D Materials & Devices.

For more information click here or here to Book a CMP Royce Facility

For funding opportunities, please refer to the Henry Royce Institutewebsite.  
Current Price List

Equipment

AJA sputtering system

AJA Sputtering system

Highly versatile RF and DC magnetron sputtering system, very good for superconducting films such as Nb

  • Automated control of the sputtering process
  • Ultra-high vacuum system with a base pressure better than 10−8 mbar
  • Up to 11 target materials in one deposition
  • Substrate size up to 100 mm diameter
  • Substrate heater up to 850°C
  • In-situ RF plasma pre-cleaning for substrates
  • Quartz crystal thickness monitor
  • Load lock allows for high throughput of samples
Sputtering systems

Custom sputtering systems

The facility hosts 4 custom built DC magnetron sputtering systems

  • Ultra-high vacuum systems up to 10−8 mbar
  • Up to 4 different target materials
  • Turntable with automated thickness control allows growth of multiple different samples in one deposition
  • Sample heaters up to 1100°C is possible
  • Reactive sputtering of nitrides and conductive oxides is possible
  • Highly customisable systems
E-beam evaporator

Electron beam evaporator

  • Can grow high purity polycrystalline metallic films such as Au, Nb, Pt, V, Al, and Cu
  • Up to 7 targets in one deposition
  • Can grow at room temperature or liquid nitrogen temperature
  • Can achieve a vacuum level of 10−8 mbar
  • Quartz crystal thickness monitor
  • Load lock allows for high sample throughput
Argon ion miller

Argon ion miller

The argon ion miller allows for anisotropic and non-selective etching of devices.

Suitable for metallic or insulating materials.

AFM

Atomic force microscope

A Bruker Multimode 8 with Nanoscope 5 controller.

Has several different modes of operation.

  • Contact, tapping and peak force modes
  • Standard atomic force microscopy (AFM)
  • Magnetic force microscopy (MFM)
  • Piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM)
  • Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM)
E-beam lithography system

Electron-beam lithography system

LEO /ZEISS 1455VP scanning electron microscope equipped with Raith Elphy Quantum for device fabrication.

  • Accelerating voltages from 200 V to 30 kV
  • Single writefield up to 1000 μm
  • 250 nm feature resolution exposed using a 400 μm writefield
  • PC-based pattern generator allow up to 63 different layers
  • Allows fully automated or user assisted field to field alignment
Cryogenic Probestation

Cryogenic DC/RF Probe station                            

Lake Shore Cryogenics CRX-6.5K

  • Base temperature 12 K (2-probes) - 350 K
  • Maximum 5-probes (DC/RF)
  • Maximum sample size 51 mm (2")
  • Vacuum <5x10^-4 Torr
  • Visual System: 2.8 microns resolution