UKNIBC Expanding the UK National High Energy Implant Facility

本提案中要求的设备将加强现有的EPSRC国家研究设施，该设施为英国学术界和工业界提供离子注入和辐照设施。离子注入是半导体工业用来将掺杂剂原子引入半导体器件特定区域的技术。它可以以极高的控制水平和准确性在大面积上做到这一点。离子注入机在半导体器件的制造过程中被多次使用，并且在世界各地的生产线制造工厂中被大量使用。这些都不适用于研发计划，因为生产线过程受到严格控制，不允许工艺流程中的任何中断。因此，研发依赖于独立的设施，例如位于萨里的英国国家离子束中心提供的设施。涉及高能注入（离子加速到超过1MV的电势）的研发计划在光电子和太阳能电池研究领域很常见，其中需要对组件进行掺杂和光学限制。离子辐照使用相同的高能加速器在结构材料中产生辐射损伤，以模拟核反应堆容器内的条件。中子（以及其他电离辐射）辐照对反应堆材料的长期影响是众所周知的，如脆化、蠕变和膨胀。在那里，寻找改进的材料是提高核反应堆寿命和运行成本的关键。这些效应可能需要几十年才能在反应堆中显现出来。辐照设施允许在离子束下在几十小时内观察到这些效应。高能离子的使用对于在适当远离材料表面的地方产生辐射损伤尤其重要，这是已知的扰动影响。英国学术界和工业界在这些领域的研究稳步增长，萨里的高能离子消除器的使用自30年前安装以来增加了两倍多。依靠一台使用30年的机器来提供此服务并不理想，需要第二台机器来提供更高的可用性和更强大的服务。目前，一些离子种类可能是“具有挑战性的”，以产生和占用大量的机器时间，在提取所产生的少量离子。由于对单台机器的要求很高，因此很难证明在这些应用上花费的时间是合理的。第二个插件将提供更强大的服务，提供故障备份，并为用户提供额外的时间，长时间运行不会如此严重地阻碍其他用户。

The equipment requested in this proposal will strengthen the existing EPSRC National Research Facility which provides access to UK academics and industry with facilities for ion implantation and irradiation.Ion Implantation is a technique used to by the semiconductor industry to introduce dopant atoms into specific regions of semiconductor devices. It can do this with extremely high levels of control and accuracy and over large areas. Ion implanters are used many times in the fabrication process of semiconductor devices and are heavily utilized in production line fabrication plants around the world. None of these are available for R&D programs, as the production line process is tightly controlled and does not allow for any interruption in the process flow. Consequently R&D relies upon stand alone facilities, such as the one provided by the UK National Ion Beam Centre at Surrey. R&D programs involving high energy implantation (ions accelerated to a potential over 1MV) are common in opto-electronics and solar cell research areas, where deep implants are required both doping and optical confinement of components. Ion Irradiation uses the same high energy accelerator to produce radiation damage in structural materials to simulate the conditions inside nuclear reactor vessels. The long term effects of neutron (as well as other ionising radiation) irradiation on reactor materials is well known, such as embrittlement, creep and swelling. There search for improved materials is key to improving the lifetime and running costs of nuclear reactors. These effects may take decades to manifest in a reactor. The irradiation facility allows these effects to be observed in a few tens of hours under the ion beam. The use of high energy ions is particularly important to produce the radiation damage suitably far away from the surface of the material, which is known to be a perturbing influence.Research in these areas in the UK from both academia and industry has grown steadily and the use of the high energy ion implanter at Surrey has more than tripled since the machine was installed 30 years ago. The reliance on a single 30 year old machine to provide this service is not ideal and a second machine is requested to provide increased availability as well as a more robust service. Currently some ion species can be "challenging" to produce and take up large amounts of machine time in extracting the small numbers of ions generated. With high demand on the single machine it can be more difficult to justify the time spent on these applications. A second implanter will allow a more robust service, providing back up against failure, as well as providing additional time to users and long runs will not hold up other users so drastically.