Development of a data acquisition and control system for thin film deposition equipment and its application to metals -: MBE

A versatile data acquisition and control system (DACS) of general application in physical vapor deposition equipment for thin films growth has been designed and developed. Based on a common and inexpensive hardware, a modular conception of the software allows the system to be easily adapted to control a variety of devices and therefore to be used for a number of applications with very light adjustments. A particular configuration of the system has been successfully implemented in a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) setup specially designed for the growth of metallic heterostructures and magnetic multilayers. The number and different features of devices and processes to be registered and controlled in this equipment demonstrate the capability of the tool, the case of operation and the compatibility with complementary software for simulation, data storage and processing. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.