Laser Physics Centre (LPC) Facilities

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Metricon prism coupler

This machine is used for measuring refractive index (of thin films and bulk) and propagation losses (in thin films). The machine has sources with wavelength range—600 nm to 1550 nm. Highest refractive index that could be measured is ~3.2 and the index can be measured with an accuracy of 10-4.

Electron beam evaporator

This machine is controlled by EOS (a Queanbeyan based company).

PLD system

This system is used for deposition of materials like ZnO and Tellurium dioxide. The system has 2 deposition chambers, a smaller one that can hold one 4" wafer and a larger chamber that can hold four 4" wafers. The laser produces 8 ps pulses with frequencies ranging between 150 kHz and 28 MHz. The larger deposition chamber has a heat stage, whose temperature can be increased upto 700oC and can be used to deposit very uniform films (with thickness variations of only ~20 nm).

K&S 7100 dicing saw

This machine is not operational yet.

DC sputter deposition system.

This machine can handle 6" wafers. Cr, Au and Al targets are available for sputtering.

Photodeflection spectrometer

This machine is used for measuring optical losses and is specially designed to measure low losses. Can measure losses of up to 0.03dB/cm at any wavelength.

Micro-Raman system

This machine has the capability of measuring 100-2000 wavenumbers with a 808 nm source.

TEPLA 400 plasma system

This machine uses O2 or Ar plasma to clean samples with minimal etching. The cleaning process results in minimal ion bombardment of the samples and hence minimal etching.

Filmtec 4000

This machine employs a wavelength source in the range 350-1680 nm to measure refractive index, dispersion, film thickness and absorption in thin films. Stacks of upto 5 different films can be analysed. This machine uses a non-contact technique and can be used to map 6" wafers. Optical thickness of upto 150 µm can be measured with sub nm accuracy and refractive index can be measured with an accuracy of 1 part in 105.

Home built nano-imprint lithography system

This machine has been used to transfer features with dimensions of about 0.5 µm.

Ovens

200oC Vacuum oven; 300oC purged environment oven; 300oC Vacuum oven

Standard optical microscope with a 1 Mpixel video camera.

SVG 8600 coat and develop track

This machine is fully automated, can handle six 4" wafers at a time. It coats substrates with PR (thickness reproducible to 6 nm), cleans the back surface, bakes it and after exposure (using Karlsuss MA6 mask aligner) develops and hard bakes the substrates.

ICP etching

The machine is set up to handle 4" wafers.

A laser interferometer employing 676 nm source is used for measuring the etch depths.

The machine employs 500 W bottom electrode RF supply at 13.56 MHz and a 3 KW ICP source. The equipment has O2, Ar, CHF3 and CF4 sources. This system is right now not capable of etching Si (as CF4 does not give good selectivity). The mass flow controllers are capable of handling large gas flows which gives better control on etch profiles.

4-5 µm deep (about 1 µm wide) etches were achieved in silica using this machine.