Furnace room

The furnace room is a dedicated facility to support high temperature equipment such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor depositors (PE-CVD), thermal evaporators, muffle furnaces and convection ovens. Automation features have been implemented to accelerate efficiency and reduce the turnaround time. Experiments range from growing large area graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) and high entropy alloys (HEA) on different surfaces to heat treatment processes such annealing, baking and pyrolysis. Each reactor chamber is equipped with dedicated gas handling system to support process specific gases and facilitate synthesis either in ambient conditions or under vacuum. In the preliminary stage, the facility is heavily producing candidate materials to be investigated as potential Functional Intelligent Materials (FIM’s). Whereas in the long term, as part of the proposed Materials Robotics Lab (MRL), it will house high throughput growth chambers which are expected to churn out materials with predesigned structures and functionalities, aided by Machine Learning (ML) capabilities.

All the furnaces in the following table are open for both I-FIM and non I-FIM users, subject to the booking and charging policy. Please contact Dr. Tummala Pinaka Pani  and Dr. Sourav Mitra for enquiries on equipment usage or sample submission.

List No.  Key Specifications  Picture 
Two-Zone Split Tube Furnace

• Max. temperature 1200°C
• Heating zone length: 450 mm
• With active cooling and turbomolecular pump
• Gases: Ar, N2, H2 and CH4
• Tubes: 1”, 2” and 3” quartz tubes

Single-Zone Tube Furnace

• Max. temperature 1600°C
• Heating zone length: 450 mm
• With active cooling and turbomolecular pump
• Gases: Ar, N2, H2 and CH4
• Tubes: 1” and 2” quartz and ceramic tubes

C  Customized PE-CVD
• Three-zone split tube furnace
• Max. temperature 1200°C
• Heating zone length: 610 mm
• With active cooling and turbomolecular pump
• 500W plasma generator with dedicated 2” quartz tube for PE-CVD
• Gases: Ar, N2 and H2
• Tubes: 1” and 2” quartz and ceramic tubes
 

 

D Single-Zone Tube Small Furnace

• Max. temperature 1100°C
• Heating zone length: 300 mm
• With active cooling and turbomolecular pump
• Gases: Ar, N2 and CH4
• Tubes: 2” quartz

E Vacuum Drying Oven

• Volume: 25L
• Max. temperature 250°C
• Ultimate Pressure: <0.01 mbar
• Under Fume hood conditions

F Muffle Furnace No 1

• Volume: 22L
• Max. temperature 1100°C

G Muffle Furnace No 2

• Volume: 20L
• Max. temperature 800°C 

H Convection Oven

Volume: 120L
• Max. temperature 300°C

I Vacuum Deaeration Mixer

• Equipped with a special container and has the maximum capacity of mixing and defoaming of 350ml/350g
• Can mix the materials at high-speed revolution (up to 2500rpm) under vacuum condition and achieve efficient defrosting effect noncontact mixing mode.

J Cold Wall CVD Reactor

 

Design in progress

We are building a new synthesis system (including a cold wall chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor) to facilitate growth of large area materials on 2”-4” wafers. The system would be equipped with robotic manipulators, nitrogen-purged load-lock mechanism, accentuated by in-line optical and conductivity measurement capabilities to enable high-throughput material design, synthesis and property screening.
The system includes various metal gasket seal fittings, pneumatic valves, mass flow controllers, pressure controllers, and other components, all operated remotely via custom made automatized control panels. Four source lines are available for solid precursors, allowing the deposition of different mono-elemental and two-dimensional materials such as graphene, TMDs, and high entropy alloys. A separate connection is available for direct characterization with the help of a robotic arm. Purified argon, nitrogen, and hydrogen are available as process gases.