An ultra-flexible modular high vacuum setup for thin film deposition.

A modular high vacuum chamber dedicated to thin film deposition is presented. We detail the vacuum and gas infrastructure required to operate two highly flexible chambers simultaneously, with a focus on evaporation techniques (thermal and electron beam) and magnetron sputtering, including baking equipment to remove residual water from the chamber. The use of O-ring-sealed flat flanges allows a tool-free assembly process, in turn enabling rapid changes of the whole setup. This leads to a high flexibility regarding the deposition techniques as the chamber can be adapted to different sources within minutes, permitting the formation of multilayer systems by consecutive depositions onto the same substrate. The central piece of the chamber is a flat flange ground glass tube or cross. The glass recipient permits optical monitoring of the deposition process. Further equipment, such as for the introduction of gases, additional pressure gauges, or evaporators, can be incorporated via specifically designed stainless steel/aluminum interconnectors and blank flanges. In the end, we demonstrate the preparation of an unsupported thin film system consisting of electron-beam-evaporated platinum nanoparticles embedded in magnetron-sputtered zirconia (ZrO2), deposited onto NaCl single crystals, which subsequently can be removed by dissolution. These films are further analyzed by means of transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy.