Designing and Constructing a Heater Stage for a Physical Vapor Deposition Chamber

Abstract

A thermal substrate stage was developed for physical vapor deposition of thin metal films. The stage can maintain a uniform, constant temperature across a 4 cm diameter substrate throughout the deposition process, even while it is being radiatively heated at ~5 W for 10 min by the evaporate metal. The substrate is adhered to an 11 cm diameter, 6.4 cm long aluminum heat sink. Previous experiments concluded that Ag paste produced the best thermal contact between the substrate and heat sink. To balance the most surface area possible for thermal contact and removability of the paste, grooves were made in the heat sink. The control stage features ceramic standoffs, holding the aluminum heat sink to the inside of the deposition chamber, and a heater wire pasted to the heat sink to initialize and stabilize the desired temperature.