Clean Room

The Graphene Research Centre has built a state-of-the-art clean room facility with 800 m2 of Class 1000 and 100 landscapes. It provides sophisticated micro- and nanofabrication facilities for graphene and other research material. Below you can find a list of the current and expected equipment as well as some recent photographs.

Electron Beam Lithography

The Nova nanoSEM 230 is an ultra-high resolution field-emission SEM system configured to get the most information out of the largest selection of samples, down to the nanometer level. It offers ultra-high resolution characterization at high and low voltage in high vacuum. Apart from SEM, it is an extensive set of tools for nanoprototyping, with an on-board digital pattern generator and dedicated patterning software (Nabity - NPGS & designCAD), a high speed electrostatic beam blanker and gas injection systems for direct electron beam writing of nanostructures.

Atomic Force Microscopy

The BRUKER Dimension FastScan delivers extreme imaging speed with atomic resolution while simultaneously providing real-time maps of properties derived from the individual force interactions. With its built-in measurement automation software in conjunction with higher speed ScanAsyst, it can provide exceptional measurement confidence and repeatability. It supports various imaging modes such as contact, tapping, magnetic force microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy and etc.

Thermal Evaporator

The Nano36 offers thin film deposition at low vacuum pressure with 3 isolated thermal evaporation sources on the base plate to prevent cross contamination.  Thermal sources can be filament, basket heaters, box heaters, boats (coated and uncoated), rods and screens. It has user friendly GUIs to ease the control of sample mounting, chamber pressure and deposition process. Evaporation methods are controlled via a quartz crystal sensor in conjunction with a thin film controller to achieve reliable deposition.

Wire bonder

The F&K Delvotec Model is a universal thin wire bonder that can be used as a gold wire ball bonder and as well as aluminum wire wedge bonder. The bond head can be switched easily between ball and wedge bonder. It offers production in manual or semi-auto mode with heat sample stage holder. Its LCD display panel ease the bonding parameters adjustment and users can save their settings for repeated use.

Raman Microscopy

The Alpha 300 R offers the unique ability to acquire chemical information non-destructively. This allows you to observe and analyze the distribution of different phases within a sample in ambient conditions without specialized sample preparation. In addition to chemical compounds, analysis of physical properties such as crystallinity or material stress are also possible. Apart from information on the sample surface, it is able to look deep inside transparent samples and even obtain 3D information. The acquisition time for one spectrum in the range of milliseconds, resulting in complete images being collected in a matter of minutes.

Molecular Beam Epitaxy

MBE is widely used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices. It allows the deposition of single crystalline structure such as oxide, semiconductor, metal and organic. This system has more than 10 ports to cater for different wafer sizes and deposition materials.

Inductively Coupled Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition

ICPCVD can be utilized to deposit a number of materials such as SiO2, SiNx, SiOx Ny, a-Si and SiC. In Graphene Research Centre, we have tailor made our system to focus on the growth of high quality graphene on 8” silicon substrate.

Reactive Ion Etching

The VITA-MINI is a plasma ashing and etching system which supports 3 gas channels, 6” substrate and 300W of RF regeneration. It can be used for low power plasma cleaning of substrates and high power reactive ion etching of metals and thick polymers.

Atomic Layer Deposition

The Savannah ALD offers precise control of depositions down to the atomic scale. It provides digital control of your thin films which grow one layer at a time and can be controlled to accurate thicknesses – nano or micro scale on ultra-high aspect ratio features (greater than 2000:1). Individually precise control of precursor line temperature gives the flexibility to use solid, liquid, or gaseous precursors.

Wet Benches

Wet benches are used for chemical etching, wafer cleaning and many other wet chemical processes . Additional options such as nitrogen, DI water gun and hotplates will further assist users in their experiments.

Fumehoods / Fumedesks

Laboratory fume hoods serve as a ventilation device to control exposure to toxic, offensive or flammable vapours, gases and aerosols. Fume hoods are the primary method of exposure control in the laboratory. Exhausts are used to remove hazardous gases, dusts, mists, and vapours from a confined location and helps protect users from inhalation exposure.

Optical Microscopes

ZEISS Imager.A1m	Nikon Eclipse LV100D	Nikon SMZ 1500
2.5x to 100x	4x to 100x	0.75x to 11.25x

The optical microscopes are specially designed for image processing and documentation. It introduces high resolution and excellent contrast as it enlarges the image of the sample in the focal plane. The Nikon SMZ has a micromanipulator stage with 3 axes control for graphene transfer process.

Hotplates

SD160	SD500	SD162
Aluminium / Silicon Alloy		Glass Ceramic
max 1200 deg C		max 600 deg C
200 x 200 mm		300 x 300 mm

A portable appliance which is used to heat samples of different sizes at various temperatures and it also contain a magnetic stirrer to allow automatically stirring of heated chemicals.

Spincoaters

POLOS 200	SPS SPIN 150	WBS-400BZ-6NPP
max diam. 260mm	max diam. 160mm	max diam. 150mm
1-10000 rpm

Laser Writer

LW405B is designed for the definition of planar geometries and for surface diagnostics, in applications where maximum resolutions down to 0.7 µm are required. The system transforms a laser beam into a controlled writing tool for photolithographic mask fabrication or for direct in situ processing on planar substrates. This also eliminates the requirement of mask for lithography.

Ultraviolet Lithographer / Mask Aligner

The MJB4 is equipped with a reliable, high precision alignment and high resolution printing capability in the submicron range. It offers fast and highly accurate alignment with SUSS singlefield or splitfield microscope, HR optics enables high resolution prints down to 0.5μm, combined SUSS broadband optics (UV250/300/400) allows for fast switching between different wavelengths and wafer and substrate handling up to 100mm.

Binder Oven

The Binder FD115 offers a broad range of application. It provide quick drying, uniform circulation even under full load and homogenous temperature distribution throughout the process. Temperature range from 5 °C above ambient temperature to 300 °C.