Preventive Maintenance of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Machine for the Growth of III-V Compound Semiconductors

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) is a technique for growing epitaxial films by directing beams of atoms or molecules created by thermal evaporation onto a clean heated substrate under Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) conditions. Although the process appears to be simple, MBE machines are quite complex. The maintenance requirements are arduous and toilsome. Several practical problems have to be addressed in order to consistently maintain the UHV required for depositing low defect and high quality epilayers. Because of the accurate control and precise repeatability of doping and thickness required to produce epilayers for device applications, machine performance over a period of time must be maintained. This paper highlights the problems and issues being faced for proper maintenance of Molecular Beam Epitaxy Systems.