Pulsed laser deposition Technology
Solmates' thin film process equipment is based on pulsed laser deposition (PLD). PLD is a Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) process that offers many advantages above other conventional techniques.
PLD can be compared with Sputtering, only that the plasma is generated by a UV laser irradiation instead of Argon ion bombardment.
Solmates is leading the PLD development
PLD has been used for deposition on small scale samples (10 x 10 mm) since 1961. Since then many unique processes were developed but never on wafer scale. Solmates developed PLD equipment for wafers up to 200mm that matches industrial standards. Solmates owns patents on critical aspects of revolutionary PLD technology as well as on specific processes.
Various materials
Solmates’ PLD technology is suitable to deposit many different materials, as can be seen in the overview below. Selected processes have been optimized for specific markets.
Read all about the unique power of Pulsed Laser Deposition
Overview of our markets, PLD application and materials
| Markets | Application / Functionality | Materials |
|---|---|---|
| RF & 5G | SAW, BAW, timing devices, discrete devices (varactors, beam-steering, high-K) | Sc:AlN, AlN, BN, BaTiO3, Ba1-xSrxTiO3, LiNbO3 |
| OLED & LED | Anti-reflection, TCO's, barriers, passivation | Al2O3, AZO, HfO2, IGZO, ITO, IZO, IZrO, IWO, MgO, Mg-ZnO, Ta2O5, ZnO, ZrO2 |
| MEMS & NEMS | Sensing, actuation, acoustics | Al2O3, BiFeO3, KNN, LaNiO3, PbTiO3, Pb(Zr, Ti)O3, PMN-PT, SrRuO3, LiNbO3, ZnO, AlN, Sc:AlN, HfO2 |
| CMOS & Power IC | High-k, passivation, barriers, spintronics | AlN, Al2O3, CeO2, HfO2, MgO, PZT, SrTiO3, TiN, ZrO22 |
| Energy | SOFC, PV, batteries, thermoelectrics | YSZ, CIGS, Gd-CeO2, ITO, (La,Sr)(Co, Fe)O3, LixMnO2, LixCoO2, NaxCoO2, AlOx, MoOx, TiOx |
| Photonics | Electro-optics, IR-detection, waveguides, quantum computing, Pockels effect | Al2O3, BaTiO3, ITO, LiNbO3, PLZT, Y3Fe5O12, ZnO, Bi:YIG |
| Memory | MRAM | Sc:AlN, Gd:HfO2, BiFeO3, CoFe2O4, CrO2, LSMO, MnFe2O4, MnO2 |
| Conductors | Electrodes, reflectors, alloys, super-conductors, metal-insulator transition, oxide electrodes | Ba(Bi, Pb)O3, LaNiO3, SrRuO3, SrLaCuO4, V2O3, Yba2Cu3O7-x, ITO, IZO, IZrO, IWO |
| Epitaxy | Templates, superlattices, 2D-materials | CeO2, GaN, LaAlO3, MgO, SrTiO3, TiN, YSZ, MoS2 |
