Evaporative Thin Film Deposition

Date:

  • Thursday, October 26, 2023
  • At the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History
  • The course will take place from 8:30am-4:00pm Mountain time and will include lunch

Course Objectives

  • Learn about a broad range of evaporation techniques: technology and fundamentals
  • Understand evaporation mechanisms
  • Review of gas kinetics
  • Evaporation and equilibrium vapor pressure (thermodynamics and kinetics)
  • Thermal and electron beam evaporation sources: materials issues
  • Deposition rate monitors: advantages and disadvantages
  • Evaporation of alloys and compounds: kinetics and materials considerations
  • The role of energetic particles: ion plating, ion-beam assisted deposition, etc.
  • Processes controlling film growth and properties
  • Stress evolution in evaporated films
  • Overview of related deposition techniques: MBE, PLD, Vacuum-Arc Deposition

Course Description

Thermal evaporation is employed in a very wide variety of film-growth processing technologies with applications ranging from optics, magnetics, and microelectronics to wear and corrosion resistance to functional and decorative coatings. This course provides an understanding of thermal evaporation and related processes; the relationship between evaporation rate and vapor pressure; flux directionality; and film thickness uniformity. Advantages and disadvantages of common and specialized evaporation sources including filaments, boats, effusion cells, Knudsen cells, and electron beam sources are described with examples. Reactive evaporation of compounds such as oxides, nitrides, sulfides, etc. is compared with ion-assisted techniques including ion plating, activated-reactive evaporation, pulsed-laser deposition, and vacuum-arc deposition for compositional control of complex materials. The use of in-situ deposition rate monitors including quartz crystal oscillators and optical spectroscopy is also covered.

Fundamental aspects, as well as the technology, of thin film nucleation and growth by evaporation are discussed and highlighted with many examples.

Who Should Attend?

Scientists, engineers, students, technicians, and others involved in the deposition of thin films by evaporation who want to understand the effects of operating parameters on the properties of metal, semiconductor, compound, and alloy films.

Instructor: Ron Goeke, Sandia National Laboratories

Ron Goeke received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of New Mexico and his B.S. from New Mexico State University.  He works in the Analytical Technologies Department which is part of the Component Science, Engineering and Production Center at Sandia National Laboratories.  He has over 30 years of experience with thin film deposition.  His research efforts have focused on the development of thin films via vapor deposition for tribological, electrical, optical, hydrogen storage and diffusion barrier applications.

Course Materials

Course Notes will be provided.