[labnetwork] RTA furnace issues

[Gila,Brent P]

Hello Sushma,

I am not sure what procedure the company has for cleaning the RTA 
quartz, but we clean our RTA quartz with a buffered HF solution 
(standard 6:1 BOE).  We have a different RTA (Solaris150) but it has a 
quartz chamber.   Basically etch everything back to clean quartz. We do 
get residue on our quartz from time to time and the etching works great, 
returning the process back into spec.

Of course follow all safety regulations, proper PPE, and use best hood 
practices when working with HF.

Best Regards,
Brent
-- 
Brent P. Gila, PhD.
Associate Director, Research Service Centers
University of Florida
1041 Center Drive
Gainesville, Florida 32611
Tel:352-273-2245,  Fax:352-846-2877
email: bgila at ufl.edu

On 1/26/2024 1:13 PM, Sushma Kotru wrote:
> *[External Email]*
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Sorry, this is going to be long e-mail.
>
> We have an RTA, JetFirst 100/150 from Jiplec (yes, it is old but was 
> working fine).  We use it mostly for annealing PZT/PLZT films around 
> 750 C. We started noticing some changes to the quartz window (picture 
> attached) and the films are damaged after annealing and develop a 
> white layer on the surface. These films don’t show any ferroelectric 
> properties after annealing in RTA furnace.
>
> At this point we are kind of stuck as we cannot make progress on the 
> research projects without annealing the films. We have contacted the 
> company and they suspect that the quartz window is creating the issue. 
> We have cleaned the quartz window using the procedure the company 
> provided but the problem still exists. The company is suggested to 
> replace quartz window ( with additional parts) and buy a special 
> sample holder (~30K)
>
> My questions are:
>
>  1. Does anyone have RTA from this company? If so, can you provide
>     your contact so that we can connect off line?
>  2. Those who use  similar RTA furnaces, have you faced similar issues?
>  3. I am not positive if the issue is with the RTA or with the
>     samples. When we anneal other samples (magnetic- eg. Ni ferrite
>     etc.), we have no issues with those samples. Anyone who has a RTA
>     furnace- would you be willing to help us by annealing a couple of
>     samples for us?
>  4. At this point, I don’t have the money to buy the components but
>     before I even start looking for resources, I want to make sure the
>     problem is RTA and not the process itself (graduate student is
>     using process established by previous graduate students but not
>     getting results).
>
> Any help/suggestions/comments would be highly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sushma
>
> *Sushma Kotru*
>
> Associate Professor
>
> Senior Member IEEE
>
> Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
>
> Materials Science PhD Program
>
> The University of Alabama 
> <https://www.ua.edu/>
>
> 2034 NERC,  Box 870286
> Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
> Phone 205-348-7235 <tel:205-348-7235>
> skotru at eng.ua.edu <mailto:skotru at eng.ua.edu>
>
> Divider line
>
> The University of Alabama 
> <https://www.ua.edu/>
>
>
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