UHV MBE Deposition System

The Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) deposition system comprises two interconnected deposition chambers.

The first chamber is for the epitaxial growth of topological insulators and related materials, and the second for the deposition of a range of metals. It is a flexible Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) system capable of the well-controlled growth of high-purity epitaxial layers and heterostructures. This covers a wide range of different compounds with unusual properties such as topological insulators and thermoelectrics. These materials include those which have already been identified as topological insulators such as Bi₂Te₃ and Sb₂Te₃, as well as other materials of interest. After growth in this chamber, samples can be transferred under contamination free UHV conditions to the evaporator, described below, for deposition of capping layers.

The second chamber is a UHV evaporator chamber with several different sources using both thermal and electron beam evaporation techniques to deposit a range of metals onto samples transferred from the MBE system. This UHV evaporator can also be used independently to provide high-purity materials suitable for spintronic and superconducting device research.

If your research interests require growth of materials using this UHV deposition system, please contact Facility Manager Craig Knox (csk42@cam.ac.uk) or Dave Ellis (djpe2@cam.ac.uk) in the Department of Physics.