Designing a vacuum chamber and substrate positioning system for magnetron sputtering deposition applications

Abstract

A new custom vacuum chamber with a substrate positioning system in our SMARTMAT laboratory is needed, as the previous one that we installed did not suit our needs. Based on our experiences with the old sputtering system, we designed a smaller vacuum chamber that could be attached to our existing load-lock system, and that could have a substrate positioning system suited for our magnetrons which would work with the load-lock. The new system replicates our initial experiments and is compatible with our experimental data acquisition system. We mounted the sensors and vacuum equipment on the chamber, and initial vacuum tests were a success, which validated our design.