Cleanroom Center

This tool represents an easy to use UV-photolithography solution for processing of small substrates and wafers up to 4-inch. The machine allows high resolution patterning with feature sizes down to ca. 1 µm. For mulitlayer processes, fast and accurate alignment can be performed with an accuracy of about 1-2 µm. Furthermore, the instrument is equipped with an infrared light source that can be utilized to identify buried alignment marks e.g. on the backside of the wafer.

The Nanoscribe Photonic Professional GT2 uses two-photon polymerization to realize highest resolution 3D printing with feature sizes down to about 200 nm. Prominent applications of the filigree 3D shapes can be found for example in the field of microfluidics and microoptics. The structures are designed with the aid of a CAD software and subsequently transferred in a direct writing process (i.e. without need for a photomask).

In this reactive ion etching (RIE) and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) cluster, three parallel plate reactors are connected via a load lock module with a fully automated transfer system. The first chamber is intended for etching processes with chlorine-containing chemistry, while the second chamber is reserved for etching processes with fluorine-containing compounds. In the third chamber, deposition processes of dielectric layers can be carried out, whereby their mechanical and optical properties can be optimized by mixing high-frequency and low-frequency plasma excitation.

The Univex 350 is a multi-purpose coating system equipped with a loadlock, a 6-pocket electron beam evaporator (3 kW), two thermal evaporators and an argon sputter cleaner. The rotatable sample holder can be water cooled or heated, depending on the process requirements. A quartz crystal monitor and a thin film deposition controller facilitate an automated an reliable deposition process.

The rapid thermal processing tower comprises two separate cold wall chamber furnaces for silicon and III-V semiconductor materials. Wafers with a diameter of up to 4-inch can be annealed in rapid cycles with ramp rates of up to 200 °C/min and a maximum temperature of 1250 °C. Gas mixing capability with mass flow controllers permits to run processes in a well defined environment, e.g. in an inert gas atmosphere or in pure oxygen. Temperature control is performed using a thermocouple and a high temperature pyrometer. The system is designed for high reproducibility and high uniformity along the whole wafer.

The tool performs contact-based surface profile scans to characterize film thickness and roughness on the scale of only few nanometers. The vertical measurement range amounts to 262 µm. The scan length can be adjusted between 50 µm and 30 mm.

This manual optical microscope is a versatile tool for routine inspection in material science. It offers several contrast methods like brightfield (BF), darkfield (DF), differential interference contrast (DIC), or polarization (POL). The illumination can be alternated between reflected and transmitted light. Furthermore, a digital camera is mounted onto the microscope for image capture and analysis.