Affordable Open-Source Quartz Microbalance Platform for Measuring the Layer Thickness

The layer thickness measurement process is an indispensable companion of vacuum sputtering and evaporation. Thus, quartz crystal microbalance is a well-known and reliable method for monitoring film thickness. However, most commercial devices use very simple signal processing methods, offering only a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-08, Vol.22 (17), p.6422
Main Authors: Matusiak, Adrian, Żak, Andrzej Marek
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
3-D printers
Cables
Connectors
Control equipment
Cooling
Crystal oscillators
Dielectric films
Electric fields
Electrodes
evaporation
Film thickness
film thickness monitor
FTM
Methods
Process parameters
QCM
Quartz crystals
Receivers & amplifiers
Sensors
Signal processing
Software
Sputtering
Technology application
Thickness measurement
Thin films
Universal Serial Bus
Vapor-plating
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Description
Summary:The layer thickness measurement process is an indispensable companion of vacuum sputtering and evaporation. Thus, quartz crystal microbalance is a well-known and reliable method for monitoring film thickness. However, most commercial devices use very simple signal processing methods, offering only a readout of the frequency change value and an approximate sputtering rate. Here, we show our concept of instrument, to better control the process parameters and for easy replication. The project uses open-source data and its own ideas, fulfilling all the requirements of a measuring system and contributing to the open-source movement due to the added value and the replacement of obsolete technologies with contemporary ones. The device provides an easy way to expand existing sputtering machines with a proper controller based on our work. The device described in the paper can be easily used in need, being a proven project of a fast, inexpensive, and reliable thin-film thickness monitor.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s22176422