Blue M Furnace

2024-12-20 to 2025-01-02: Reduced Holiday Operations

Dear Birck Research Community,

The Purdue winter recess begins effective Friday afternoon December 20th and concludes Thursday morning, January 2. The university is officially closed during this time. As we have done in past years, the Birck Nanotechnology Center will remain available for research but will be unstaffed and hazardous gasses will be unavailable. Lab work may otherwise proceed, though any fume hood work must be done with someone else present in the same laboratory or cleanroom bay (the "buddy" system). Click the link above to get more detail about equipment conditions and rules.


Refer to the Material and Process Compatibility page for information on materials compatible with this tool.
Equipment Status: Set as UP, PROBLEM, or DOWN, and report the issue date (MM/DD) and a brief description. Italicized fields will be filled in by BNC Staff in response to issues. See Problem Reporting Guide for more info.

StatusUP
Issue Date and Description


Estimated Fix Date and Comment


Responding Staff

Blue M Furnace

iLab Name: Blue M Furnace
iLab Kiosk: BRK Furnace Core
FIC: Shared
Owner: Rich Hosler
Location:
Cleanroom - R Bay
Maximum Wafer Size: 
2"/50 mm

Overview


General Description

A table-top general purpose furnace for inert and forming gas ambient conditions. The system uses a quartz tube is 3" in diameter with a horizontally on a quartz plate boat. Ramps to 1100 °C using a single temperature zone.

Specifications

  • Max Temperature (°C): 1100°C

  • Max Processing Time (min):

  • Available Gas: N2, Ar, O2, and Forming Gas

  • Vacuum Capability: No

  • Max Wafer Size: 2"/50 mm


Sample Requirements and Preparation

If possible, samples should be Piranha cleaned for 10 minutes. If this is not possible due to material incompatibility, a TAI Solvent clean followed by a mandatory DI water rinse step is permissible.

Paraffin is not allowed in the furnace.


Questions & Troubleshooting

      Forming Gas Tips

  1. Use N2 for purging and during temperature ramp up.  Since forming gas is 96% nitrogen, you don't get any benefit by purging and ramping in forming gas.
  2. Select a flow setting for forming gas during your steady state somewhere at the half way mark.  Flowing forming gas with the silver ball at the very top of the flow meter is probably excessive.  I've had users gain success with the silver ball flowing at 50%.
  3. Use N2 during the temperature ramp down step, too.  Again, forming gas probably doesn't yield a benefit at this point in time for you.


References

 Temp Inventory





Type K TC - 0.010 12" BareOmegaL-0044K7 CR
Ceramic Insulators - 2 HoleOmegaTRX-13218-63 CR
Type K TC - 0.010 72" GGOmegaL-0044K9 CR
Type K TC - 0.020 12" BareOmegaL-0044K7 CR
Type K TC Plug MaleOmegaSMPW-CC-K-M9 CR