Engineering Research Equipment Grant: Chamber for UHV and Cleaning of III-V Semiconductors

提出了通过各种技术组装用于原位刻蚀和清洁III-V异质结构的柔性超高真空(UHV)室，包括首席研究人员与化学和化学工程系的同事合作正在开发的独特的无损伤超音速波束工艺。该室将连接到现有的分子束外延系统，将由电气工程和计算机科学系的首席研究员和他的同事使用，研究高性能电子、光电子、光子、以及量子设备和集成系统。除了设计用于特高压环境中的蚀刻和清洁外，该系统还旨在使研究人员能够掩模、蚀刻、图案、和/或以其他方式在生长系统外部处理III-V异质结构；使其回到超高压生长环境中；然后为进一步的MBE生长清理、刻蚀和准备其表面。它还包括在准备好的表面上涂上砷的规定，以保护它们在随后在多室生长系统内的转移和存储期间以及在从系统中移除期间免受污染。

It is proposed to assemble a flexible ultra- high vacuum (UHV) chamber for in-situ etching and cleaning of III-V heterostructures by a variety of techniques, including a unique damage-free supersonic beam process under development by the principal investigator in collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. The chamber, which is to be attached to an existing molecular beam epitaxy system, will be used by the principal investigator and his colleagues in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science research on high performance electronic, opto-electronic, photonic, and quantum devices and integrated systems. In addition to being designed for etching and cleaning inside the UHV environment, this system is designed to enable researchers to mask, etch, pattern, and/or otherwise process III-V heterostructures outside the growth system; to return them to the UHV growth environment; and to then clean, etch, and prepare their surfaces for further MBE growth. It furthermore includes provision to coat the prepared surfaces with arsenic to protect them from contamination during subsequent transfer and storage within the multi-chamber growth system, as well as during removal from the system.