The New Quahog

Ok, Quohog to some of you.  Big clamshell in any case.   Without hardly any encouragement from blog-reading fans, we decided to see if we could make an even less complicated, even easier to use little vacuum deposition tool for OLEDs (glove box integrated), general lab use,  and all the good things that thousands of CV-300, 301, 302 have been so noted for.

Most of our small systems have been bell jar-on-baseplate, and all the early ones were diffusion pumped, with liquid nitrogen traps.  Newer systems had turbo pumps,  all sorts of chambers, but kept the same 3-valve architecture, and a baseplate.   Over time, several things have happened:  Pyrex bell jars became expensive, so did liquid nitrogen, and despite competition, vacuum valves remained stupidly costly, even our own ones.   More of our systems sprouted stainless bell jars,  we made box chambers even for small stuff, and the special requirements of OLED or other glove-box imbedded systems drove other requirements.  But prices crept up inexorably. 

So we now have a clamshell chamber, recessed flush with a table top, or a glove box floor, with a simple, hinged lid.  The vacuum system is turbo, backed by a dry pump, and mirabile dictu,  it doesn’t need any expensive valves or stuff to control them!  You turn it all on to pump down, and vent it all to open it up.  One switch.   Pretty much like the integrated pump packages the big companies sell, except with a versatile chamber,  a wide-range gauge, and evaporation, sputtering or plasma hardware.

The older amongst you might see echoes of that inspired antique Temescal 1800 design, which we have also shamelessly copied in the past for quartz crystal basecoating systems.   The idea was to put the sample level right in front of the operator, and recess the chamber down below, eliminating the stretching and climbing that big bell jar systems needed,  not to mention the headroom!   This time, it’s a 12″ diameter chamber, all stainless, with a flange thats convertible between glove box and plain table mounting,  our oversized 2kW power supply,  much more access than possible with a bell jar, and your choice of  process and analytical bits.

Right now, we see two basic variants; small turbo and bigger one.   Something around 70 l/s and 250 l/s.   No cooling water, no compressed air, no LN2.    Price tag,  low.   Stay tuned for dimensional sketches, and, as usual, call or email me 203-853-9500 cooke@snet.net  with your wish list.  Anything at all can be built into a small system, but we’re looking for maximum utility in the largest number of applications, so tell me.

Now it’s a depression, and that ain’t better vacuum

OK,  my forebodings of general distress and poverty have come to pass.   One reader called them ’somber’, which is as good a word as any.  Our clever friends in the alternative energy (PV, organic devices, etc) fields are watching their startups fade away, and those that can, are going back to their academic day jobs.   Others are just out of luck, and out of work.  A great deal of innovative R&D is hanging fire, and will not last until the  wave of stimulus money dribbles down through the traditional channels, and for sure, the venture boys are not taking up the slack.

At Cooke, we have never before had so many dollars of solicited quotations out there, and so few orders.  I’m calling people back who were ready to buy two months ago, but who are now just history,  erased names in the directory.   Our state, Connecticut, is, at least publicly busted, and is essentially forced to squeeze business even more.

So, ms. thin film scientist, where can we go from here?

Thanksgiving Redux

A year ago we posted news of how the research slowdown affected the work we were getting.  Our customers were largely out of budget, and holding.  Guess what?  The successful dismantling of the global economy by some of my more rapacious neighbors (yes, this is where the Wall Streeters live), has put everything on hold.  A couple of companies in vacuum components are still doing well with military hardware, and a friendly competitor is busy selling to the rapidly-developing labs overseas.

Overall, though, it looks like it’s going to be a far tougher year for many researchers,  startups, and established companies, especially in the US.   Excellent ideas are going to remain undeveloped,  while large-scale bogus ones with political implications are going to eat the remaining funds.  Solar energy is already being measured up for a coffin by the capital sources,  the NSF is flat, Fermilab can’t chase bosons, and the public is far more concerned with food and shelter than with technological advance.

So, send us your tired, your poor, your oily masses needing rebuilding,  the wretched refuse of your basements and storerooms.  If you can’t afford what you need, lets make do with what you have.  And note that we still have some surplus items here on the blog, and also on our ebay store.

Also,  looking toward better days,  we’d still like to see those new product ideas.  Anything related to thin films, vacuum,  sensors and the like are welcome.   For variety, we’re not only located near the masters of the universe who trashed the world for personal greed, but there are also a few remaining investors who, although cautious, are still looking.

My accountant says, “Be thankful!” So we are.

-Richard

An Elephant in the Classroom

As part of our scattershot marketing effort, I was given the opportunity to teach EVERYTHING ABOUT VACUUM TECHNOLOGY  to a bunch of employees at a plant largely involved in metallurgical vacuum, that is furnaces and heat treatment.   I hadn’t been up against a blackboard or its equivalent in a long time, so this got me thinking about how arcane and fractionated the world of vacuum technology is.   I started with units, of course, and realized that the practical mess caused by all of our non-SI, weird units involving mercury columns, inches of water, pieces of a standard atmosphere etc., could not be explained in a few minutes.   Explaining gauges and measurement without resorting to any physics proved also to be problematical, so I moved on to pumps and pumping.   Here, I was on more solid ground, as there are good analogies to things like compressors, turbines, engines and so forth. 

Save Your Pump Oil, Boys!

Users with only a few vacuum pumps, or those not in constant use, don’t think about pump oil very much.  On our small deposition systems, I’ve heard from customers about decades of running without an oil change.  However, oil gets dirty, changes chemically, and often just leaves the pump one way or the other.  We can only assume that the hydrocarbon versions at least, are going to get expensive along with everything else oily.

Let’s keep these costs down!

If you’re pumping something particularly reactive, like pure oxygen, effluent from a plasma reactor, CVD tool, etc, you already know how fast oil can get degraded.  The mechanisms are chemical change, usually in the direction of increasing viscosity,  corrosive additions,  accumulation of abrasive particles, and just plain dirt.   A rotary vane pump running hydrocarbon oil may fail in just a few hours, and a Fomblin or other inert oil pump may fail surprisingly soon as well, especially because the impurities will not mix with the oil, form a supernatant film, and rot through the pump.  A bathtub ring of the nasty kind!

OLED Masks, Mask holders and Cleaning

We make OLED deposition systems, glovebox and otherwise.  Most are very simple and either deposit the organics or the interconnect.  Because of the fragility of the devices, patterning is sometimes done by deposition through stencil masks – that is, lithographic masks with holes, placed in proximity to the OLED substrate.  This ancient, low-resolution technique is sufficient for test devices, although production might be a different matter.

Anyway, to make a multi-layer device, users want an in-situ mask changing mechanism, and they also need some means of cleaning the masks.  As with everything else in life and vacuum, there are easy ways and hard ways.   To make it possible to change masks under vacuum with the absolute minimum of gear, we came up with a very simple carousel device operating from a single feedthrough.   Of course, every user seems to have a different mask size and substrate size, so we’re not exactly going to mass-produce this item.   We are, however, beginning to run into mask cleaning and handling questions, so here are a few ideas.

The Death of Brooklyn Poly

We all know how badly technology is decaying in the US, and we also know how very little most people care about it. But you do, if you’ve got any reason at all to look at this blog. Here’s another road sign on the route to perdition: the demise of an historic technological university.

The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, lately going by several other names as it underwent structural changes leading to its forthcoming dissolution, was one of several specialized colleges in the New York City area that arose from the industrialization of the 19th century, and the enormous need for education in the sciences and engineering. For many years it also served the particularly urban need for night school as working people tried to improve themselves and get better jobs, or ones relevant to new industries.

The very focused, and often down and dirty role of Poly and similar institutions was a necessary component to the growth of science and technology. These schools did not transition, like MIT or Stanford, to eminence through strong government or industrial linkages; in effect they missed the boat, over and over again, through mismanagement, wrong locations, or simple lack of resources. However, the story of the poor immigrant, or the kid from the projects, who cobbled up a career the hard way, taking the subway to a better life , is a good story, and an American wonder.

Now, this school, that I attended more because of full support than anything else, is headed for history, as another institution, also having failed to subsist on technology, has grasped the opportunity to, in brief, trash Poly in order to get its newly valuable urban real estate.

The (renewed) Elephant in the Room

Here it is the end of March, and the capital equipment gloom continues for most of us. As the dollar worsens, and energy costs take on a new meaning, equipment budgets have been stuck in a new type of hibernation. Normally, our quotations to customers have not had a specific expiration date, but they do now! Just merely whispering ‘nanotech’ to an investor is not gathering the immediate shower of wealth that it did last year. (I know what you’re thinking, that’s crude, crude, crude… but maybe somewhat appropriate!)

The equipment elephant in the room is now looking dangerous: it costs too much, it eats too much, and we can’t be sure that we have a job for it. On the other hand, without him, maybe we don’t have jobs either.

Recession- a Money Vacuum

Our business is erratic at best. Because most of it is custom work, we never really know what’s the next job, and we have only the most vague ‘marketing’ predictions about what’s hot in six months. What we do have, though, is a fairly predictable ratio of system quotes to booked jobs, and this ratio is telling us that our customers are holding off spending. It’s not that our honorable competitors are getting the work – our custom engineering often means that we’re the only company willing to make just one wingwang for goose’s bridle.

Recession fear is here. Grants are not coming through, startup money is more focused than it used to be, and the big companies are not interested so much in research as in just staying solvent. Somebody out there must have some hard numbers on this problem, but we’re seeing it fairly clearly because we serve the research community.

What to do? For years, most of our detailed equipment quotes have recommended options for minor or major cost reduction. We’ll even help you identify some other source of used equipment, and outline the best approach for modifying it for your use. We’re here to facilitate your work, not to make the most profit doing it. We know we don’t have a talent for the latter! So, if you’ve got some good ideas, and are unable to find a realistic amount of money to pursue them, run your woes past us. In the art of making do, we’ve got more experience than anybody, at least since the Great Depression. Can you make a workable UHV chamber from a stainless acid carboy? RF power from a ‘ham’ transmitter? Buy a system in parts? Re-use stuff that you’ve already got? Borrow time on someone else’s system?

To be sure, these are default options, and we’re all very concerned that this country officially is willing to abandon science and technology, and unwilling to prevent declines in education, manufacturing, and innovation. For the time being, we’re fighting a losing battle, and a turnaround, if any, has an associated time constant that’s pretty long. There is just so much you can do without equipment, good people, and a clear avenue for development. So, here’s my suggestion of the day: Set aside some time, say an hour a week, to agitate for technology. This might involve letters to politicians, blog activity, attending (goodness!) policy meetings, or even volunteering at a nearby school, where, I assure you, science has been put so far back on the back burner that it’s stone cold.

The malnourished elephant’s tip of the day: Nobody is going to do it for you. The man or woman in the lab must take responsibility, or else all will be lost. Courage and creativity are ours to use.

An Elephant’s Contract

Continuing our series on how to buy a piece of equipment, we touch on the dreary matter of contracts and specifications. We do this because we’ve got an interesting impossible purchasing situation going on. Customer wants the product, has money for the product, but we can’t do a deal, and while we futz around, their project is slipping deadlines.

Because you, the researcher, doesn’t normally buy a major capital item very often, and because you don’t get to learn anything much about how your organization buys things, you can easily wind up with the low-bid you didn’t want, have outrageous administrative costs sucked out of your budget, or in some cases, not get anything at all!

Here’s what to think about…..