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Thin film and microfabrication laboratory

Thin film and microfabrication laboratory

The thin film and microfabrication laboratory is specialized in the deposition and analysis of thin films, as well as in the microfabrication of structures through UV photolithography and chemical etching processes.

Thin film deposition is primarily carried out using PVD (sputtering and evaporation). The films can be composed of metals (Cr, Ni, Al, etc.) or oxides (PZT, SiO₂, IZO, etc.), with thickness uniformity that can be below 5% on surfaces up to 4''. Some materials can be epitaxially deposited on suitable substrates.

The laboratory is equipped with a Heidelberg µMLA maskless aligner capable of performing grayscale UV photolithography, shaping photosensitive resins across 256 levels, which for example allows for the creation of diffractive optical elements.

Équipement(s): 
  • Three sputtering deposition chambers equipped with lamp heating, allowing substrate temperatures to reach up to 850 °C under oxygen, with deposition in off-axis or confocal geometries
  • A thermal evaporation chamber for high and low-temperature deposition
  • A microfabrication laboratory (cleanroom) equipped with:
    • Laminar flow benches
    • Spin-coater
    • Karl Suss MA56 mask aligner
    • Heidelberg µMLA maskless aligner (equipped with the Raster Scan module for grayscale photolithography)

Contact

Head of laboratory

HEPIA
Rue de la Prairie 4
1202 Genève
Switzerland