[labnetwork] RTA furnace issues

Mon Jan 29 10:29:27 EST 2024

Sushma,

I'm assuming you're operating in Pyrometer mode at that temperature, you'll definitely have issues with without a very clean quartz window both above and in the pipeline window between the pyrometer and backside of the carrier wafer. As Brent said we typically do an acid clean on the large upper window. I use HF/Nitric Acid/UPW. The tiny lower window is likely BaF2 and any material that falls down the center pipeline onto this window can cause temperature response inaccuracy. I wouldn't use anything other than air to clean this small window.

If you're running with a TC at that temperature, it's probably breaking down and causing material to deposit on the various surfaces. You'll need to run a recalibration after everything is cleaned back up, the procedure is in the user manual and it takes some iteration to get a consistent result across your whole pyrometer range (500-1100C for us).

Rich

________________________________
From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Gila,Brent P <bgila at ufl.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 3:50 PM
To: Sushma Kotru <skotru at eng.ua.edu>
Cc: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] RTA furnace issues

You don't often get email from bgila at ufl.edu. Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
---- External Email: Use caution with attachments, links, or sharing data ----

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<mailto: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/>

_______________________________________________
labnetwork mailing list
labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
https://mtl.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/labnetwork

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20240129/8113cc41/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Outlook-Divider li.png
Type: image/png
Size: 175 bytes
Desc: Outlook-Divider li.png
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20240129/8113cc41/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Outlook-The Univer.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 6052 bytes
Desc: Outlook-The Univer.gif
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20240129/8113cc41/attachment.gif>