New Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) SiGe chamber fully
       functional at IHP materials research laboratory

“Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)” is a very flexible, cost effective and accurate thin film deposition technique used in the IHP materials research department for advanced materials science studies. Traditionally, the 4” MBE facility at the IHP materials research laboratory is a single deposition chamber system equipped with various evaporation sources for dielectric materials. Besides on-line RHEED diagnostics, a UHV transfer system is installed to transfer in-situ the samples to the photoelectron spectroscopy chamber (XPS & UPS). However, progress in the field of Si-based technology requires more and more the preparation of complex materials systems. For example, “man-made” functional stack systems like semiconductor – insulator – semiconductor structures are studied to tune the electronic properties via strain engineering and quantum confinement approaches. The upgrading of our MBE system by a second growth chamber (shown in the image), exclusively dedicated to SiGe film deposition, enables us to address these more complex tasks in a professional way. Besides the quantitative aspect of having more materials in-situ available, the newly installed chamber will also qualitatively improve our work by avoiding undesired cross contamination effects.