I am currently using al alumina crucible, but even though I can achieve deposition rates of 5 Å/s and more, the indium doesn't seem to melt and form a puddle like most other materials (e.g. Au and Ti). Does anyone here have experience with e-beam evaporation of indium? Should I use a Mo liner in the crucible?
Hey Carl Philip,
actually, I haven't evaporated Indium by myself, yet. But I got some experience with the usage of alumina liners. In all cases I tried them, the evaporation was poor or somewhat random. The fact that alumina is an isolator could make some trouble when evaporating with an e-gun, I guess. So I banned them and always tried to find some other liner material instead. Therefore I suggest the usage of C-liners, as is the suggestion by Lesker (see below). Also Molybdenum seems to work...
Good luck!
Hope the link is helpfull!
http://www.lesker.com/newweb/deposition_materials/materialdepositionchart.cfm?pgid=0
Did you check if your electrons hit the Indium for sure? I just realized, that your deposition rate might come from evaporated e-gun material (crucible, copper block, any shields)...
The electrically insulating alumina might cause beam deflection to some extend?!
To get uniform and controllable evaporation of Indium, I suggest using thermal evaporation using a PBN (pyrolytic Boron Nitrite) crucible. this can be done at about 550-650 Celsius, depending on the desired flux. Indium has a relatively high vapor pressure compared to substances that require e-beam evaporation. It should not be too difficult to equip your system with a thermal evaporation cell for Indium.
Thank you all for answers. I now use a new Mo crucible liner, and evaporation seems fine. Indium just doesn't look like other metals when using e-beam evaporation (e.g. Ti or Au), but I can easily achieve stable deposition rates and the target looks like nice and clean melted indium when I open the chamber.
Dear Carl Philip,
I'm trying to get indium film using e-beam evaporation as well. The quality of the film is pretty poor although I'm using Mo crucible and I think I have problem with the pressure. Could you just inform me what pressure do you use to get a good quality film?
Many thanks
Hi Omar. I haven't looked too much into the quality of the films I have deposited, but the background pressure in the system I use is about 5*10^-7 mbar. I usually deposit at 1 Å/s, so the pressure doesn't increase very much during deposition. Does that answer your question? I figured after looking at the target (it was old and I had not checked it) that I needed fresh indium pellets, since there was discoloration and contamination, possibly from other metals inside the indium crucible!
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