National Epitaxy Facility receives EPSRC Capital Award of almost £500,000 for Core Equipment
We are delighted to announce that the National Epitaxy Facility has been awarded almost £500,000 for core equipment by the EPSRC. This is a huge benefit to the facility as the funding will be dedicated to enhancing the existing fabrication and characterization capabilities at the University of Sheffield.
A large part of the award will go towards a wafer-scale cryostat for photoluminescence (PL) mapping of up to 3” epitaxial wafers. This will allow us to optically characterise a complete wafer at cryogenic temperatures as well as perform temperature-dependent measurements in one cool-down cycle. Wafer-scale cryostat will offer us considerable time saving and will enable the facility to analyse the epitaxial uniformity of grown wafers.
The funding will also allow us to purchase a Nano-imprint tool which will be used to create lithographically-defined nanometer-scale features on semiconductor wafers for certain projects instead of Electron Beam Lithography. It will result in significant cost savings and efficiency, due to much faster throughput. Whilst not as accurate as EBL, nano-imprint lithography requires minimal sample preparation and will be ideal for the development of NEF’s regrowth techniques, which are increasingly used for various research projects within the UK.
