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Facilities

Two molecular beam epitaxy systems, dedicated UV and infrared characterization labs, and in-house packaging — growth to measured device under one roof.

Growth

Pomelo, the nitride MBE system.
One of the Gen II systems, installed.
Effusion sources going onto the Gen II.
The UHV bakeout station.
In-situ image of AlN during an Al polishing step.

“Pomelo” — Nitride MBE system

Sources

  • Nitrogen plasma source
  • Al — 40 CC cold lip effusion cell
  • Al — 400 g cold-lipped SUMO source
  • Ga — 40 CC dual filament effusion cell
  • Ga — 400 g SUMO source
  • In — 40 CC hot lip cell
  • Be — Riber hot lip cell
  • Mg — Riber hot lip cell
  • Si — Riber hot lip cell
  • Sc — 10 CC high temperature effusion cell

Additional details

  • 2× CT8 cryo pumps
  • Custom photo-enhanced growth
  • STAIB RHEED gun
  • 3″ substrate manipulator with platens
  • In-Situ 4000 Accutemp Process Monitor for III-nitrides
In-situ image of PbSe growing on an InP substrate.

“Tangelo” — III-V/IV-VI MBE system

Sources

  • Ga — Veeco 400 g SUMO MK 2
  • In — Veeco 400 g SUMO MK 2
  • Al — Veeco 200 g cold-lipped SUMO cell
  • PbSe — Veeco 400 g SUMO MK 2
  • Si SUSI/Be — MBE Komponenten dual dopant
  • As — EPI/Veeco Mark 4 arsenic valved cracker
  • GaTe — Veeco dopant cell
  • Sb — MBE Komponenten custom downward-looking valved thermal cracker cell (VTCC)

Additional details

  • 400 L/s Varian ion pump + Gamma Vacuum pump controller
  • CTI 8 cryo pump + water-cooled compressor
  • Varian RHEED electron gun and controller
  • Pyro port heated viewport
  • Modern Veeco rotation/flip axis motors and controllers
  • 3″ substrate manipulator (modern uniblock design)
  • Buffer/prep chamber with heater station and transfer arms
  • Varian 200 L/s ion pump with Phi pump controller
  • SRS IGC gauge controllers for GC, BFM gauges
  • Granville-Phillips gauge controllers for LC, BC
  • Modern Veeco substrate manipulator controller/motors
  • EPI DC power supplies
  • MBE Control/Riber Eurotherm boxes with 2400-series Eurotherms
  • Custom interlock box with integrated Al interlock
  • SRS 200 residual gas analyzer
  • Neslab HX300 10 kW chiller
  • kSA BandiT band-edge thermometry

Bakeout chambers

  • Nitride bakeout chamber — modified Riber Modutrack for UHV bakeouts
  • III-V/IV-VI bakeout chamber — modified Veeco phosphorous recovery system for UHV bakeouts

UV Lab

The UV lab, set up for deep-UV optical characterization.
UV photoresponse measurement setup.
The UV photoresponse bench.

UV optical characterization (PL, EL, LI)

  • CryLas FQSS 213-50 — 213 nm, 50 µJ, 5th-harmonic pulsed laser source
  • Oriel/Newport MS257 monochromator
  • Oriel/Newport Instaspec VIII 78723 back-illuminated CCD
  • Oriel/Newport flange-mountable Si and InGaAs detectors
  • RMC cryogen-free closed-cycle cryostat (10 K) with custom mount for full 2″ wafers
  • LakeShore 336 temperature controller
  • Stanford Research Systems SR830 lock-in amplifier
  • Optronic Laboratories 620-NVS CCD imaging telescope
  • Optronic Laboratories 65A programmable current source
  • Optronic Laboratories integrating sphere calibration standard
  • Optronic Laboratories 18-inch integrating sphere
  • ILX Lightwave LDX-3690 high-power laser diode current source
  • ILX Lightwave LDX-3670 high-power laser diode current source
  • Photon Systems 224.3 nm HeAg laser
  • Andor Kymera spectrometer
  • Andor iDus 420 back-thinned CCD

UV photoresponse

  • Oriel/Newport CS260 monochromator with integrated deuterium light source
  • Custom probe stage with Navitar digital microscope (zoom) and Signatone S-725 micropositioners
  • Stanford Research Systems SR570 low-noise current amplifier

Electronic characterization

  • Agilent/Keysight N8973A 3 GHz noise figure analyzer
  • Radiant Technologies Precision Multiferroic II 100 V ferroelectric test system
  • Keithley 2400 source meter
  • Keithley 2750 with 7702 cards — digital multimeter and multiplexer
  • MMR Technologies variable-temperature Hall measurement system (77 K to 730 K in process gas)
  • NanoMetrics ECV Pro — electrochemical capacitance-voltage profiler

IR Lab

The infrared characterization bench.
Cryogenic infrared measurement instrumentation.

IR optical characterization (PL, EL, LI, transmission, reflection, absorption)

  • Thermo Fisher iS50 FTIR with step scan
  • Pike Technologies VeeMAX II variable-angle specular reflectance accessory
  • Custom mid-IR photoluminescence setup covering 1–18 µm
  • Cryo Industries variable-temperature liquid nitrogen cryostat with custom 121-pin grid array cold head (77 K)
  • Janis Research variable-temperature liquid nitrogen cryostat
  • Stanford Research Systems SR810 lock-in amplifier
  • Keithley 2602 system source meter
  • Custom probe stage with zoom digital microscope, Signatone S-725 micropositioners, and Arroyo Instruments 274 TECMount
  • Infrared Associates MCT detector, 13 µm cutoff
  • HP/Agilent 8114A 100 V / 2 A pulse generator

IR photoresponse

  • Stanford Research Systems SR570 low-noise current amplifier
  • Cryo Industries variable-temperature liquid nitrogen optical detector cryostat with custom 121-pin grid array cold head (77 K)
  • Calibrated blackbody responsivity setup (coming soon)

Packaging & Fabrication

Wire bonding and flip-chip bonding station.
  • K&S 4524A Digital Series manual wire bonder
  • Tresky T-3000-FC2-XP flip chip bonder
  • Bambu Lab 3D printer

Software

In Use

  • MBE growth database — PostgreSQL
  • VRHEED — RHEED acquisition and analysis
  • Plasma monitoring

In Development

  • MBE control software
  • Laser simulation — optical and electronic
  • Nanostructure simulation, built on FMMax

Collaborate with us

Interested in a growth or characterization collaboration? Get in touch.