Man, I could have used this exact video about 6 years ago. I started working towards building a high-vac setup for the sake of doing evaporative deposition. The stuff that you cover in this and your other vacuum vids gave me as much information in less than an hour as I was able to work out with about 40 hours of research on my part. It was one of the trickiest things I ever attempted, because sooooo few people were doing this stuff and talking about it on a hobbyist level. I never got around to setting up my vac to do anything better than low vac stuff, both because I had some problems getting reasonably affordable vacuum gauge controllers, and I needed to do some aluminum tig welding to get my weirdo ebay diffusion pump set up...oh, and I had to get a lathe to turn my own vacuum fittings, as the thing I got used a fitting that I never was able to track down; I even tried working with both J Lesker & Edwards Vacuum to see if they could identify the crazy things; no luck. All in all, I spent about $1k working towards this, and then ended up shelving the project for the past 6 years. I think you've inspired me to pick up the project again. It looks like since I shelved it, a lot of other people have started making good vids on the topic. I'm getting pretty excited.
hahaha dont be discouraged, ive been trying for the last 2 years also(my telescope mirror is getting impatient missing its aluminium coating), my vac system is also moving slow, think about all those problems getting info on these topics, now add the dificulty of being on another language, thats my situation
I love your videos Ben. Even though I don't fully comprehend what's happening I think it's great that you get to play around with these kinds of things and do what you love.
Outstanding Video. I have worked in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing field for years and learn more from your videos every day. I hate how Google has forced me into all this crap that I didn't have to do before. But I wanted so badly to thank you, I was even willing to suffer their abuse. Great work!
Great video Ben, I love your channel, I've gone from not even being aware of multiple interesting processes to fully understanding the principle, thank you. Keep up the great work.
Great video! would really like to see a cut down version.:) Im considering building one myself. Hopefully making a microphone capsule with this method.
Greetings! Not sure if you look at comments on old vids, but a more accessible DIY sputtering project would be AWESOME! I love what you do, but don’t have the drive and cash to do the same things. Still, fun & entertaining!
I was unfamiliar with diffusion pumps. After looking it up it still seems kind of mysterious. Explaining how they work might make for an interesting topic for a video.
Hey Ben, if you want to strike the plasma at a higher pressure you can introduce helium first to strike and once it's lit you can slowly back off the helium and should be able to run just on argon. Nice work by the way!
Would love to see a cut-down version of a sputtering system, Thank you for the offer to do a video on it. Would be great to show kids at schools how things like this are achieved and what can be done. Very interested indeed. Thanks again!
One quick tip from the sputtering work I used to do: I found that if you flush with Ar a couple times during the roughing pump-down, you get down to diffusion pump pressures much faster. I don't know the mechanism but suspect that it was due to the Ar flushing out H2O and other species with strong surface-binding energies.
As always, loved the video. Since you have a high voltage RF supply, vacuum pumps and gas manifolds you should consider making a compact CO2 laser. Or even more challenging a copper vapor laser.
thank you for sharing all this information and for sharing your scientific cosmovision, thousands of people learn new things every day from your good will I want to be like you when I grow up.. ;)
Hey, I know it's an old video but I want to see more! I'm interested in coating thin metal foils etc. I would definitely like to see how you would make a simpler machine. I'm a machinist, so I can build pretty much whatever, but it's the power supplies/equipment that would be difficult for me to source and work with. So a simpler power supply suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hi Ben, I have a few questions. How much vacuum would you say a jam jar could withstand? And how much atmospheric pressure is on your bell jar? An easier version for coatings would be great. I have vacuum pump for regasing fridges and a jam jar! :D
Hi Ben, Did you build or buy the diffusion pump? Also would a large sputtering facility post process the argon and reuse, or is it run to waste? Thanks, Mike
I thought I caught all of the series however I did go back and see that he purchased the pump in a previous video. And to answer your guess I was listening the first time not watching. Could you provide an answer to the question of argon reclamation or are you here to make people feel silly?
I recall asking you a question a couple of years ago about AR coating I think. I've since bought an old SEM desktop sputter coater that I'm restoring and will use it for simple Ag coating. My main aim is MgF2 though and of course I need RF. I could modify my machine to do evaporative too but that results in 'soft' coating - not ideal really. Great and interesting videos.
***** Dear Mr Ben, I want first to thank u four sharing your knowledge and teach me a lot. I've a question and I'll be so grateful if u can answer me, we've in our lab a homebuilt RF-MS but our white target (HA) becomes always black, we changed a lot of things, we finally found that the Ar gas was not pure, actually after changing it with a pure one, and after introducing also Oxygen, we can keep the target white but its borders still become black in the first few minutes of sputtering, and the target holder (made by copper) get oxidized also in borders, this happens especially if we use a high power, what do you think the reason is? could it be a bad cooling?
***** I forgot to mention that the reflected power is so high (it's for example about 280Wr if we use 450Wf, and 100Wr if we use 150Wf), is there any way to reduce it?
One more question i have, how the heck do you connect the power to the system. I get arcover between my shield and the positive elektrode, could it be my magnet isnt strong enough to center the plasma enough ?
***** i should rewrite that, it is a plasma but the plasma jumps to my shield and doesnt want to keep centerd on my piece of cupper. The magnetic field is going through the cupper however....
Brilliant stuff as usual (: I have a ~100l SS chamber on a new aluminium base, that I first thought I just bolt the diff pump onto. But now I'm wondering if a valve between the chamber and the diff is not optional but mandatory. I thought it was only needed if you wanted to bring the system back to ambient pressure when the oil was hot. And perhaps the longevity of the oil.
wondering if it might be possible to sputter layer of Titanium on to copper sheet? Got an idea that such might form basis for a polarised DIY supercap. The Titanium oxide layer produced by anodising is a pretty good insulator per unit distance, with a fair dielectric constant, and for usual voltages is pretty thin. place tissue paper between such a sheet and a coper sheet and soak in electrolyte to function as a liquid conductor and the effective plate seperation becomes the thickness of the oxide layer.
I will expect the substrate to be in the bottom and the target at the top, not the other way round. Is there any reason for your reversal of the configuration?
Great video! I'm trying to understand the exact role of the magnet in magnetron sputtering. The simple storyline is that the electric field accelerates the ions towards the target. But at only 1kv, they aren't going to be going very fast, not like they would in an E-Beam or old CRT TV. So I'm wondernig if there's some interplay with the magnet, where perhaps the electrons are trapped in the magnetic field, and they circle around faster and faster trying to escape -- much faster than they would in a straight line path -- and then when they strike the argon they do so with such force that incredible velocity is imparted to the ions, giving them sufficient impact. If it's not something like this, then why do we need the magnet? Why not just an anode and cathode and a thousand volts? Thank you very much for any insight you might have for me!
Great video and lucid explanation of technical intricacies. Is it possible to implement a sputter coater using EHT of an old colour TV and double stage vacuum pump?Thanks.
It is the way how the optical lenses are coated? Do you know something about the process to share with us, please? I'm personally very interested to coat some glass, lenses for interesting effects.
Maybe you know of something that'd be even more fitting, Ben, but I'd personally nominate the "sputter gun" as "gun with the goofiest name," taking the crown from longstanding champion - the "Puckle gun" (named after James Puckle).
Ben, you have really made some great progress on sputtering. A cut-down version would be interesting to see. Have you used your antenna tuner on 15 or 10 meters? Carl K6ZXU
Liked the presentation. There was a vacuum pump that I heard about in High School Chemistry that involved the drip-drip of liquid mercury that allowed Edison in his experiments to make his incandescent lightbulb. Would that sort of pump with your rig?
the glass panels from grocery store car code scanners are extremely durable, and have great thermal cycle tolerance. They might be useful for this sort of project
Ben, do you chem clean and bake any of your parts to minimize outgasssing? I'm setting up a bakeout station in my home lab and have future plans to sputter, glow discharge, etc. Thanks for sharing your technology with everyone and I'll let you know when I get my chambers up and running in case you ever wanted to bake any of your vacuum parts, I would be happy to contribute to public knowledge and learning. Keep up the good work!
Excellent tutorial Ben. I would love to see a tutorial on a minimal plasma cleaner. (I think from your plasma cleaner video its way easier) Can you tell me where you got the glass belljar?
Why have a separate valve for the roughing pump? Roughing through the diffusion pump seems fine as long as the oil is cool. I have roughed my chamber through my diffusion pump, then I turn on the heater and everything goes fine.
Hi Ben, 2 questions, first where did you get the bell jar? I see plenty on Ebay but they look ornamental and I wonder if they will withstand a high vacuum. Second, you continually flow gas through the chamber as opposed to shutting off the vacuum pumps and filling the chamber? Why not do the latter? Thanks!
Where did you get your butterfly valve from? All the ones I have looked at are in the $800+ region and a lot are pnuematic only. I was just going to use a dimmer on the diffusion pump heater to regulate the flow but I did not know about diff pump fluid going bad in atmospheric pressures.
Hi Ben, Is there a reason, that I might have missed, why one could not pre fill the jar with argon and then start the vacuum process so the mixture is mostly argon to begin with instead of creating a vacuum from atmosphere and adding argon later? Thank you for sharing!
You have an awesome workshop! You're probably aware of this, but have you tried annealing your thermally evaporated ITO coatings? If your substrate can handle it a temperature of over 400C in air for a few minutes should give you reasonable transparency and conductivity - could be worth comparing to your sputtered layer? (Or at least a good excuse to build a furnace tube?)
***** Ah that makes sense. I believe the best films I obtained were annealed at about 550C in an RTA (in "dry" air) - ebeam deposited though (unsure if that better preserves the stoichiometry?) . I seem to remember the source composition was the most important factor unfortunately - probably a difficult thing to vary depending on where you obtain your sources.
i recently have been researching the pvd process...i am looking to to do lower fork tubes from motocross dirtbikes....they are stainless steel with a chrome coating....i was wondering if this process would coat the entire tube if hung sideways or would the tube need to be rotated as its being coated... any help would be appreciated
Love your videos, but just one question. What frequency is your RF power supply operating at for this project? I am experimenting with various means of generating inductively coupled plasma and I am trying to figure out what frequency would be easiest to use, so hearing about how you went about figuring out the RF side of this project might really help me out. Keep up the great work!
Curious question have you ever tried putting your super conductor in the vacuum and tested it under various conditions? I'm curious how that could effect it's abilities and whether or not it changes any values?
what happens when your diffusion pump oil is exposed to atmosphere, does the oil decompose somehow or does it just take allot of work to degas it again for reuse?
So I have a project in mind involving smt LEDs and glass, with the idea being that the power leads for the LEDs being "invisible" on the surface of the glass. I had a few questions that maybe you could offer some insight on. If I were to place a thin glass or plastic film "stencil" between my glass slide I want sputtered with ITO and the sputter head, would the resulting sputtered IOT adhere to the glass in the pattern of the stencil? In otherwords, using such a method, could I sputter pcp style circuits onto the glass slide? My other idea would involve etching the leads onto the sputtered glass, but I am not sure how reactive the IOT coating would be to adjacent etchent. And the third method would involve some sort of masking and abrasive. These two methods are not exactly favorable, as the idea is to keep the glass crystal clear everywhere other than the leads, which will have a yellowing from the sputtered ITO. The glass will be etched prior to the sputtering to give the solder or conductive adhesive a place to sit and a rough surface on which to adhere. Another question on this line would be where to place the LEDs before hand, masking the component in such a way that only the leads are exposed, allowing the ITO to sputter onto the glass and to the leads. I am sure conductive adhesive would interface with sputtered glass, but I have heard that ITO is fragile and wonder if adhering, even partially to the ITO layer would weaken the adhesive joint. Masking seems like the most effective and economical way to get the results I want. Eventually, I plan on trying this process on a round glass tube, and masking would allow me to sputter each wire individually, rotating the part within the mask so that each line is as close to consistent with the others in terms of ITO coating, resistance, and conductivity. I would also like to place either a solid film or spray on a clear coat to protect the sputtered leads after the process is finished, would this ruin the conductivity? Is there a chemically non reactive ITO sealant? One last question. I notice your glass pressure bell has become coated in sputtered ITO, would placing a mesh screen with a slightly more relatively positive voltage from the rest of the vessel between the glass and sputter zone eliminate this problem? Or does the sputtered ITO simply behave like molecular shrapnal, with relative potential differences playing little role in its deposit?
Ben, I have a question. Can I come be your apprentice at Valve? I am a mechanical engineering student and would for sure take off from school to be your apprentice for a little while.
You should try to disprove my hypothesis. If the target is at a slightly lower temperature than anything else in the chamber the the vapor will be attracted to it like a magnet. You could do this as a side experiment during your other experiment.
I've built one basically copying the thought emporiums video. sometimes I get a soot that covers everything pretty fast. but that's when I'm lazy and dont pump down for longer than 5 min with just a 2 stage vac pump. I'm assuming that's gas molecules that I didn't pump out burning and contaminating everything but I dunno. an actual digital vac gauge is the last part i need, right now I'm just wingin it
Home built desktop DC Magnetron Sputtering machine Here is a video of another DC sputtering machine; could you comment on the difference in capability of this other sputtering setup?
If you don't mind me asking, what assumption had to be made to get the flow correction factors? For instance, is the flow through the flowmeter in viscous or turbulent flow? The reason I ask this is that in each regime the type of correction that would need to be done to the flowmeter would be different. I would have thought that it would be laminar, and thus the readings would be subject to only the gas viscosity for cc/min, with an additional factor of the gas's pressure for scc/min.
One thing is unclear to me: how does the pressure rise when closing the valve of the diffusion pump? Are there tiny air leaks or so? I would love to see an 'easy household' version of the sputtering system.
Man, I could have used this exact video about 6 years ago. I started working towards building a high-vac setup for the sake of doing evaporative deposition. The stuff that you cover in this and your other vacuum vids gave me as much information in less than an hour as I was able to work out with about 40 hours of research on my part. It was one of the trickiest things I ever attempted, because sooooo few people were doing this stuff and talking about it on a hobbyist level.
I never got around to setting up my vac to do anything better than low vac stuff, both because I had some problems getting reasonably affordable vacuum gauge controllers, and I needed to do some aluminum tig welding to get my weirdo ebay diffusion pump set up...oh, and I had to get a lathe to turn my own vacuum fittings, as the thing I got used a fitting that I never was able to track down; I even tried working with both J Lesker & Edwards Vacuum to see if they could identify the crazy things; no luck.
All in all, I spent about $1k working towards this, and then ended up shelving the project for the past 6 years. I think you've inspired me to pick up the project again. It looks like since I shelved it, a lot of other people have started making good vids on the topic. I'm getting pretty excited.
hahaha dont be discouraged, ive been trying for the last 2 years also(my telescope mirror is getting impatient missing its aluminium coating), my vac system is also moving slow, think about all those problems getting info on these topics, now add the dificulty of being on another language, thats my situation
Definitely interested in seeing a minimal sputtering setup
yes !
I love your videos Ben. Even though I don't fully comprehend what's happening I think it's great that you get to play around with these kinds of things and do what you love.
Outstanding Video. I have worked in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing field for years and learn more from your videos every day. I hate how Google has forced me into all this crap that I didn't have to do before. But I wanted so badly to thank you, I was even willing to suffer their abuse. Great work!
your videos never cease to amaze and inspire me, you are awesome ben!
Great video Ben, I love your channel, I've gone from not even being aware of multiple interesting processes to fully understanding the principle, thank you. Keep up the great work.
I'm not an engineer of any sort, but I always enjoy your videos, Ben. Informative and interesting as always! Keep it up!
Great video, Ben! A cut-down version but also without the machined parts, if that's possible, would be great.
I definitely am interested in that as well.
cut-down version +1
100ohm is really great!
A cut down version would be amazing !
Would definitely like to see a more simplified one. Thanks for the great vids.
Yes, interested in seeing the cut down version!
It would be really cool to do a cut down version. good for beginners and makers. Love your setup thought, definitely to die for.
Happy New Year, Ben :) thanks for all the videos from 2013
Yes please show us the simple version sputter coater!
Great video! would really like to see a cut down version.:) Im considering building one myself. Hopefully making a microphone capsule with this method.
Hi Ben. Thanks again for a very inspiring video! I would really appreciate a minimalistic setup regarding sputtering.
Best regards!
Could you do a video on how diffusion pumps work and operate? That would be very helpful to me!!
Love to see the cut down version! Happy to machine parts wherever i can but getting my hands on expensive gear is tricky with no money!
Greetings! Not sure if you look at comments on old vids, but a more accessible DIY sputtering project would be AWESOME!
I love what you do, but don’t have the drive and cash to do the same things. Still, fun & entertaining!
I was unfamiliar with diffusion pumps. After looking it up it still seems kind of mysterious. Explaining how they work might make for an interesting topic for a video.
Thank You, for going in to the detailes!
The video is great! Really nice explained and a great project. And I really would like to see the simplified version
Hey Ben, if you want to strike the plasma at a higher pressure you can introduce helium first to strike and once it's lit you can slowly back off the helium and should be able to run just on argon. Nice work by the way!
This is so awesome. Wish I had a shop like this.
Would love to see a cut-down version of a sputtering system, Thank you for the offer to do a video on it. Would be great to show kids at schools how things like this are achieved and what can be done. Very interested indeed. Thanks again!
Please, when dou you will do a cut down version? This video about sputtering vapour deposition was amazing.
One quick tip from the sputtering work I used to do: I found that if you flush with Ar a couple times during the roughing pump-down, you get down to diffusion pump pressures much faster. I don't know the mechanism but suspect that it was due to the Ar flushing out H2O and other species with strong surface-binding energies.
As always, loved the video. Since you have a high voltage RF supply, vacuum pumps and gas manifolds you should consider making a compact CO2 laser. Or even more challenging a copper vapor laser.
thank you for sharing all this information and for sharing your scientific cosmovision, thousands of people learn new things every day from your good will
I want to be like you when I grow up.. ;)
Hey, I know it's an old video but I want to see more! I'm interested in coating thin metal foils etc. I would definitely like to see how you would make a simpler machine. I'm a machinist, so I can build pretty much whatever, but it's the power supplies/equipment that would be difficult for me to source and work with. So a simpler power supply suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hi Ben, I have a few questions.
How much vacuum would you say a jam jar could withstand? And how much atmospheric pressure is on your bell jar?
An easier version for coatings would be great. I have vacuum pump for regasing fridges and a jam jar! :D
If it can withstand 1 bar it works. There is no difference mechanically speaking between withstanding low vacuum, high vacuum or ultra high vacuum.
Ben Krasnow: "I was thinking about making a video just showing a cut-down version to do with minimal stuff".
Justin Atkin: "Hold my spider-beer".
This is awesome stuff. Great work.
Cut down would be great. Thanks great analysis of it sputtering application
Also
definitely interested in seeing a minimal sputtering setup
Hi Ben,
Did you build or buy the diffusion pump? Also would a large sputtering facility post process the argon and reuse, or is it run to waste?
Thanks,
Mike
I thought I caught all of the series however I did go back and see that he purchased the pump in a previous video. And to answer your guess I was listening the first time not watching. Could you provide an answer to the question of argon reclamation or are you here to make people feel silly?
I recall asking you a question a couple of years ago about AR coating I think. I've since bought an old SEM desktop sputter coater that I'm restoring and will use it for simple Ag coating. My main aim is MgF2 though and of course I need RF. I could modify my machine to do evaporative too but that results in 'soft' coating - not ideal really. Great and interesting videos.
I understood some of the things you said.
***** Dear Mr Ben, I want first to thank u four sharing your knowledge and teach me a lot. I've a question and I'll be so grateful if u can answer me, we've in our lab a homebuilt RF-MS but our white target (HA) becomes always black, we changed a lot of things, we finally found that the Ar gas was not pure, actually after changing it with a pure one, and after introducing also Oxygen, we can keep the target white but its borders still become black in the first few minutes of sputtering, and the target holder (made by copper) get oxidized also in borders, this happens especially if we use a high power, what do you think the reason is? could it be a bad cooling?
***** I forgot to mention that the reflected power is so high (it's for example about 280Wr if we use 450Wf, and 100Wr if we use 150Wf), is there any way to reduce it?
I want to see a cut down version. I have no issue with doing some machining, If you do find a way to do it without perhaps you could show both?
Great stuff, would love cut down version :)
I would most definitely be interested in that!
Great video Ben!
Keep up!
One more question i have, how the heck do you connect the power to the system. I get arcover between my shield and the positive elektrode, could it be my magnet isnt strong enough to center the plasma enough ?
***** i should rewrite that, it is a plasma but the plasma jumps to my shield and doesnt want to keep centerd on my piece of cupper. The magnetic field is going through the cupper however....
Brilliant stuff as usual (:
I have a ~100l SS chamber on a new aluminium base, that I first thought I just bolt the diff pump onto. But now I'm wondering if a valve between the chamber and the diff is not optional but mandatory. I thought it was only needed if you wanted to bring the system back to ambient pressure when the oil was hot. And perhaps the longevity of the oil.
Is that the way those alcatel penning gauges read? I thought it's 5e-4 rather than 5e-5, but I could be mistaken
wondering if it might be possible to sputter layer of Titanium on to copper sheet? Got an idea that such might form basis for a polarised DIY supercap. The Titanium oxide layer produced by anodising is a pretty good insulator per unit distance, with a fair dielectric constant, and for usual voltages is pretty thin. place tissue paper between such a sheet and a coper sheet and soak in electrolyte to function as a liquid conductor and the effective plate seperation becomes the thickness of the oxide layer.
Superb! Thanks for the video.
I will expect the substrate to be in the bottom and the target at the top, not the other way round. Is there any reason for your reversal of the configuration?
Gosh damn it I like watching your videos, and yes please do a video on a slimmed down version.
TY. YOU STARTED A NEW DERECTION I'M GOING TO DO!!!!TY;)
Great video! Yes to cut down version.
Hey Ben I really enjoy your videos. I was curious how do you monitor the thickness of your coating?
Great video!
I'm trying to understand the exact role of the magnet in magnetron sputtering.
The simple storyline is that the electric field accelerates the ions towards the target.
But at only 1kv, they aren't going to be going very fast, not like they would in an E-Beam or old CRT TV.
So I'm wondernig if there's some interplay with the magnet, where perhaps the electrons are trapped in the magnetic field, and they circle around faster and faster trying to escape -- much faster than they would in a straight line path -- and then when they strike the argon they do so with such force that incredible velocity is imparted to the ions, giving them sufficient impact.
If it's not something like this, then why do we need the magnet? Why not just an anode and cathode and a thousand volts?
Thank you very much for any insight you might have for me!
Great video and lucid explanation of technical intricacies. Is it possible to implement a sputter coater using EHT of an old colour TV and double stage vacuum pump?Thanks.
Please make a video on sputter coating inside the cylindrical part. I want to see the design of the target in this case.
It is the way how the optical lenses are coated? Do you know something about the process to share with us, please? I'm personally very interested to coat some glass, lenses for interesting effects.
Ben, yes i have interest in seeing a minimum equipment sputtering process.
Maybe you know of something that'd be even more fitting, Ben, but I'd personally nominate the "sputter gun" as "gun with the goofiest name," taking the crown from longstanding champion - the "Puckle gun" (named after James Puckle).
Ben, you have really made some great progress on sputtering. A cut-down version would be interesting to see. Have you used your antenna tuner on 15 or 10 meters?
Carl K6ZXU
Liked the presentation. There was a vacuum pump that I heard about in High School Chemistry that involved the drip-drip of liquid mercury that allowed Edison in his experiments to make his incandescent lightbulb. Would that sort of pump with your rig?
the glass panels from grocery store car code scanners are extremely durable, and have great thermal cycle tolerance. They might be useful for this sort of project
Pure intelligence! Thank you.
Ben, do you chem clean and bake any of your parts to minimize outgasssing? I'm setting up a bakeout station in my home lab and have future plans to sputter, glow discharge, etc. Thanks for sharing your technology with everyone and I'll let you know when I get my chambers up and running in case you ever wanted to bake any of your vacuum parts, I would be happy to contribute to public knowledge and learning. Keep up the good work!
Excellent tutorial Ben.
I would love to see a tutorial on a minimal plasma cleaner. (I think from your plasma cleaner video its way easier) Can you tell me where you got the glass belljar?
Happy New Year Ben wish you all the bests
can you make coating Diamond-Like Carbon by this device ?
Thank you for submitting information, and do you can show me the source get these devices
Why have a separate valve for the roughing pump? Roughing through the diffusion pump seems fine as long as the oil is cool. I have roughed my chamber through my diffusion pump, then I turn on the heater and everything goes fine.
Great video! Any idea how much it would cost for someone to replicate your magnetron sputtering system?
Where did you find the specifications on the parts you machined yourself? Dimensions, surface finish, material type, etc. Great videos!
Hi Ben, 2 questions, first where did you get the bell jar? I see plenty on Ebay but they look ornamental and I wonder if they will withstand a high vacuum. Second, you continually flow gas through the chamber as opposed to shutting off the vacuum pumps and filling the chamber? Why not do the latter? Thanks!
would also like a cut down version
i woudl be interested in seeing the cut down version
Where did you get your butterfly valve from? All the ones I have looked at are in the $800+ region and a lot are pnuematic only. I was just going to use a dimmer on the diffusion pump heater to regulate the flow but I did not know about diff pump fluid going bad in atmospheric pressures.
Hi Ben,
Is there a reason, that I might have missed, why one could not pre fill the jar with argon and then start the vacuum process so the mixture is mostly argon to begin with instead of creating a vacuum from atmosphere and adding argon later?
Thank you for sharing!
I so want one of these for public physics demos. Where did you get the glass enclosure and what size is it?
You have an awesome workshop! You're probably aware of this, but have you tried annealing your thermally evaporated ITO coatings? If your substrate can handle it a temperature of over 400C in air for a few minutes should give you reasonable transparency and conductivity - could be worth comparing to your sputtered layer? (Or at least a good excuse to build a furnace tube?)
***** Ah that makes sense. I believe the best films I obtained were annealed at about 550C in an RTA (in "dry" air) - ebeam deposited though (unsure if that better preserves the stoichiometry?) . I seem to remember the source composition was the most important factor unfortunately - probably a difficult thing to vary depending on where you obtain your sources.
i recently have been researching the pvd process...i am looking to to do lower fork tubes from motocross dirtbikes....they are stainless steel with a chrome coating....i was wondering if this process would coat the entire tube if hung sideways or would the tube need to be rotated as its being coated...
any help would be appreciated
Excellent.
Love your videos, but just one question. What frequency is your RF power supply operating at for this project? I am experimenting with various means of generating inductively coupled plasma and I am trying to figure out what frequency would be easiest to use, so hearing about how you went about figuring out the RF side of this project might really help me out. Keep up the great work!
Curious question have you ever tried putting your super conductor in the vacuum and tested it under various conditions? I'm curious how that could effect it's abilities and whether or not it changes any values?
Great Video
great work, once again ! :) thx
what happens when your diffusion pump oil is exposed to atmosphere, does the oil decompose somehow or does it just take allot of work to degas it again for reuse?
So I have a project in mind involving smt LEDs and glass, with the idea being that the power leads for the LEDs being "invisible" on the surface of the glass. I had a few questions that maybe you could offer some insight on.
If I were to place a thin glass or plastic film "stencil" between my glass slide I want sputtered with ITO and the sputter head, would the resulting sputtered IOT adhere to the glass in the pattern of the stencil? In otherwords, using such a method, could I sputter pcp style circuits onto the glass slide?
My other idea would involve etching the leads onto the sputtered glass, but I am not sure how reactive the IOT coating would be to adjacent etchent. And the third method would involve some sort of masking and abrasive. These two methods are not exactly favorable, as the idea is to keep the glass crystal clear everywhere other than the leads, which will have a yellowing from the sputtered ITO.
The glass will be etched prior to the sputtering to give the solder or conductive adhesive a place to sit and a rough surface on which to adhere. Another question on this line would be where to place the LEDs before hand, masking the component in such a way that only the leads are exposed, allowing the ITO to sputter onto the glass and to the leads. I am sure conductive adhesive would interface with sputtered glass, but I have heard that ITO is fragile and wonder if adhering, even partially to the ITO layer would weaken the adhesive joint.
Masking seems like the most effective and economical way to get the results I want. Eventually, I plan on trying this process on a round glass tube, and masking would allow me to sputter each wire individually, rotating the part within the mask so that each line is as close to consistent with the others in terms of ITO coating, resistance, and conductivity. I would also like to place either a solid film or spray on a clear coat to protect the sputtered leads after the process is finished, would this ruin the conductivity? Is there a chemically non reactive ITO sealant?
One last question. I notice your glass pressure bell has become coated in sputtered ITO, would placing a mesh screen with a slightly more relatively positive voltage from the rest of the vessel between the glass and sputter zone eliminate this problem? Or does the sputtered ITO simply behave like molecular shrapnal, with relative potential differences playing little role in its deposit?
Ben, I have a question. Can I come be your apprentice at Valve? I am a mechanical engineering student and would for sure take off from school to be your apprentice for a little while.
Does a gasket separate the bell jar and steel base? That is, what is the black tape-like material that wraps around the jar? Thanks.
You should try to disprove my hypothesis. If the target is at a slightly lower temperature than anything else in the chamber the the vapor will be attracted to it like a magnet. You could do this as a side experiment during your other experiment.
Really educational.... thanks......
witch powersorce would you recommend and how do you supply your spark plug?
How many millimeters thick is the wall of your bell jar? Is it made of alkaline glass or borosilicate?
Is it possable to make dichroic filters with this setup? or do you know where I could find information on how to create specific colors?
Ben, can i use a microwave magnetron to do something similar to sputtering. if not, what could i use it for ?
I've built one basically copying the thought emporiums video. sometimes I get a soot that covers everything pretty fast. but that's when I'm lazy and dont pump down for longer than 5 min with just a 2 stage vac pump. I'm assuming that's gas molecules that I didn't pump out burning and contaminating everything but I dunno. an actual digital vac gauge is the last part i need, right now I'm just wingin it
Is this also for vacuum metalizing coloring glass and metal with gold
Could you coat plastic materials? Or the plasma heat would melt it?
Home built desktop DC Magnetron Sputtering machine
Here is a video of another DC sputtering machine; could you comment on the difference in capability of this other sputtering setup?
They are pretty similar. My system has water cooling, so the sputtering process can be run for a longer period of time without overheating the target.
If you don't mind me asking, what assumption had to be made to get the flow correction factors? For instance, is the flow through the flowmeter in viscous or turbulent flow? The reason I ask this is that in each regime the type of correction that would need to be done to the flowmeter would be different. I would have thought that it would be laminar, and thus the readings would be subject to only the gas viscosity for cc/min, with an additional factor of the gas's pressure for scc/min.
One thing is unclear to me: how does the pressure rise when closing the valve of the diffusion pump? Are there tiny air leaks or so?
I would love to see an 'easy household' version of the sputtering system.
The pressure rises because of the inflow of Argon is held constant.
Zbyněk Šanda
Thanks!
I thought the argon supply is switched off once the desired pressure is there.
Ben kept the diffusion pump running, to flush any impurities and contaminants with fresh argon.
Why do you need the RF power source? You did not show it in your other video.