Try vitreous carbon crucibles.  They are recommended there:

http://www.rdmathis.com/PDF/Thin-Film-Evaporation-Source-Ref-Guide-watermark.pdf

http://www.lesker.com/newweb/deposition_materials/materialdepositionchart.cfm?pgid=0?section=tables&init=skip

Then, so the carbon doesn't conduct heat to the hearth as much, use a thin alumina washer on the bottom and some kind of thin maybe flexible alumina or zirconia on the sides, like this:  http://www.zircarceramics.com/pages/flexible/index.htm

Good luck!

Tantalum Crucibles work well also a bit pricey however

Thanks Ward Ruby and Eric Krage. yesterday i have tried once more with alumina crucible. this time i go for slow heating. but at one point nickel is spitting and vacuum level decreases. so i couldn't evaporate at constant rate. The crucible didn't break this time.  if i use vitreous carbon or tantalum crucibles can i avoid spitting of nickel while melting?.  or any other way to evaporate nickel without spitting.

i have tried applying power slowly.

Kamalan, usually metals absorb hydrogen and other gasses during processing.  Sometimes you'll have to really work at removing the gases so that they don't come out quickly during melting causing spitting.  This means that the charge has to be heated very slowly, AND uniformly.  I have built vacuum systems solely for the purpose of "pre-melting" the charge in the crucibles and degassing.  It isn't easy for some materials.  Maybe look around for some vacuum-processed nickel feed material.

thanks senior Ward Ruby. i have tried evaporating material with slow time. seems i have to try little slower and i have tried pre-melting of nickel too. still i dont understand why this cause crack in alumina crucible. i have put up some checks in cooling around hearth as well.. i will update you the status in couple of days with alumina crucibles which i have in stock. i should have brought glossy coated graphite than alumina crucibles which is costly...

Alumina crucibles are pretty fragile.  They don't take thermal shock well.  I once tried them for copper, and most every time the copper solidified, it cracked the crucible.

I have also evaporated Nickel using graphite crucible and everything was fine. Alumina is not desirable in EB-PVD. Temperature inside the crucible can go over 2500K so there cannot be any cooling effect.

Can you tell me about the current and deposition rate you are using to deposit the film. And what type of chamber cooling you are using.  May be i can suggest you something.

Hi Biswajyoti, Initial experiments i have used graphite crucibles and the power applied was 720Watt. i have Telemark crucible pockets.  around 560Watt the nickel got melted but the evaporation rate of 1 A/sec couldn't achieved. i got around 0.1A/sec and this evaporation rate didnt raise even applying more power and spitting occured around at 720Watt.   . i went through literature and found that alumina and glossy coated graphites are suitable.  and now a days i am trying with alumina crucibles.

Are you sure that you were using graphite or glossy coated graphite? . because graphite is not suited for evaporating nickel. u may visit the link which i have given in the questing part. if not so please explain how to do that with graphite.. i need thick nickel film around 1 micron.

See a crucible doesn't play any role other than to hold the samples and conduct heat(in some cases). I have gone through the chart and i must say that i have coated zirconia, ceria, samarium, copper everything in graphite crucible without any failure(although the list you mentioned says different story). Graphite is also preferred due to its inertness to react with metals or ceramics(except aluminum or silicon).

I seriously don't get how alumina crucible is used. It will fracture at the operating temperature(you can use it to evaporate very low vaporization point substances).

Basically nickel needs very less power to deposit so it should deposit in the range you mentioned. You need to take some caution while coating.

1) Did you degass your sample?

2) Do you periodically use the x-y manipulator to focus the beam at different points of the sample?

3) Is the OC(piezo electric sensor) in good condition(it degrades after 20-30 coating period)?

before deposition we normally do degassing the materials.  we have programmable sweep controller to control the beam even patterning also can be done.  normally we do change the quartz crystal monitor after 2 micron deposition. because its sensitivity is maximum 5 micron.

in our lab we do evaporate rare earth materials using graphite crucible only. since nickel is magnetic it is deflecting the beam at initial power and starts melting as go on followed by spitting.  

thanks to Ward Ruby. i have successfully evaporated nickel using graphite crucible. I have also got good evaporation rate and no spitting occurred. The reason as you have mentioned is cooling factor. 

Glad it worked out for you, Kamalan.  The reason people usually don't try insulators to thermally isolate the crucible is that thermal insulators are also usually electrical insulators, and the crucible can charge and deflect the beam.  Luckily for us at high temperatures the ceramics are bad electrical insulators.  Now why it works in the beginning when the crucible is cold is unclear to me.  Maybe localized heating or point discharges, but the bottom line is that it finally heats up and works.