Such a pity. This group has been tailing off since 2011. Such a wealth of insight too! Think a Yahoo re-org had something to do with it.

Such a pity. This group has been tailing off since 2011. Such a wealth
of insight too! Think a Yahoo re-org had something to do with it.

Well, let’s generate some traffic!

?

About 25 years ago I worked at a small thin film R&D outfit in Ventura CA. It was the most fun job I’ve had. Part of it was maintaining the sputtering system that was central to the whole operation. It had a 5HP mechanical roughing pump followed by a small turbo. Turbo was connected to the load lock chamber. The sputtering chamber itself was pumped by a cryo. It was a two target Gartek sputtering system. A shuttle system, magnetically coupled to an external drive, moved a pallet holding the wafer to be coated from the load lock to the first position - a water-cooled table that raised up to hold the pallet. Bellows allowed the motion in the vacuum. Once the cryo took the chamber down to 10^-6 Torr (ion & pirani gauges) the chamber was flooded with a small amount of Argon. A magnetron target above the wafer was then energized with either 13.56 MHz RF if it was a dielectric target or DC HV for conductive target. The resulting plasma sputtered the atoms from the target to the wafer. When that was done the wafer on the pallet could be moved farther into the system to the next table and target for the next material coating. We sputtered Gold, Palladium, Titanium, Titanium-Tungsten, Copper, and some dielectrics that I don’t recall. I wrote the software that ran the system in Forth (the boss liked Forth) rebuilt each pump, designed the load lock door and target magnets, and so on. Thus began my love of vacuum science. Now I have a small diffusion pumped system in my home shop, just for fun.

?

The gurgle of a roughing pump, the whine of an accelerating turbo, the throbbing of a cryo cold head drive. Music to my ears.

WA6EJO

?

开云体育

开云体育

开云体育

Well, let’s generate some traffic!

?

About 25 years ago I worked at a small thin film R&D outfit in Ventura CA. It was the most fun job I’ve had. Part of it was maintaining the sputtering system that was central to the whole operation. It had a 5HP mechanical roughing pump followed by a small turbo. Turbo was connected to the load lock chamber. The sputtering chamber itself was pumped by a cryo. It was a two target Gartek sputtering system. A shuttle system, magnetically coupled to an external drive, moved a pallet holding the wafer to be coated from the load lock to the first position - a water-cooled table that raised up to hold the pallet. Bellows allowed the motion in the vacuum. Once the cryo took the chamber down to 10^-6 Torr (ion & pirani gauges) the chamber was flooded with a small amount of Argon. A magnetron target above the wafer was then energized with either 13.56 MHz RF if it was a dielectric target or DC HV for conductive target. The resulting plasma sputtered the atoms from the target to the wafer. When that was done the wafer on the pallet could be moved farther into the system to the next table and target for the next material coating. We sputtered Gold, Palladium, Titanium, Titanium-Tungsten, Copper, and some dielectrics that I don’t recall. I wrote the software that ran the system in Forth (the boss liked Forth) rebuilt each pump, designed the load lock door and target magnets, and so on. Thus began my love of vacuum science. Now I have a small diffusion pumped system in my home shop, just for fun.

?

The gurgle of a roughing pump, the whine of an accelerating turbo, the throbbing of a cryo cold head drive. Music to my ears.

IMHO, Yahoo groups is still as good as it gets, for now.

Who knows what the future holds.

I am a mod on Cloudy Nights. They already have an ATM forum but I could
ask if they are willing to add a vacuum forum. Odds are probably not
good for getting one though.