PRINCIPLES OF VACUUM TECHNOLOGY (FAS,August2000)

For the operator and user of optical coatinq deposition equipment

1. VACUUM

1.1 Definition

For industrial purposes we refer to any pressure below atmospheric as a

vacuum. One may therefore refer to vacuum as the application of "low"
pressure. We need to choose a "level" of vacuum appropriate to our
application and or process we want to use.

The lower the pressure we require for our application the "higher" a vacuum
we need. For example:

just below atmosphere = vacuum

lower"pressure ./ IV = high vacuum
even lower pressure = ultra high vacuum

1.2 Pressure units

Pressure is the ratio of force over area:

P = F/A

The correct unit for pressure is Pascal:

1 Pa =1 N/m2
So 1 Pascal is equal to 1 NeWton/square metre. And atmospheric pressure is
(roughly) equal to 100,000 Pascal, plus/minus a bit depending on weather
conditions. A "standard at!"losphere" is 101,325 Pascal

Although no longer (o"ificially)to be used most people still use the (old)
quantities of bar and Torr. Again, atmospheric pressure is (roughly) equal to
1 bar or 760 mm of Mercury (the measure for Torr).

The conversion between bar and Torr is:

1 bar =1000 mbar =750 Torr

For all practical purposes as applied to what we will be interested in we may
loosely interchange mbar with Torr:

1 mbar - 1 Torr
There should be little need for that though as the (old) unit of Torr is little in
use in Europe and only still quite widely used in the US (as they do use
Gallons and Miles/hour)

Principles of Vacuum Technology "

 Also remember the factor of "hundred" when converting between mbar and
Pa:

1 mbar = 100 Pa

Another terminology sometimes still used, especially by some "old sputter

dogs" in the field is the terminology of "microns". This is because most sputter
vacuum coating processes operate in the e-3mbar range, thus "microns" of
milli-bars. For example, if they work at 6e-3mbar pressure they may refer to
this as a "process in the 6 micron range".
The terminology of microns is certainly jargon, not to be found in any books,
and it's quoted here only as a tip in case you come across people using it.

Despite Pascal being the official (Standard International) unit for pressure
most people is the field prefer to use bar. So we will also stick to the (non-
textbook) convention of bar in this document.

1.3 Industrial vacuums

The atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude very rapidly and eventually
reaches an ultra low pressure in outer space (+ 200 Km altitude and beyond).
So this can be used to better visualise the kinds of low pressure we are
working with.
For example, the cabin pressure in jet aircraft is equivalent to 2000 m altitude.
The pressure on top of Mount Everest is about 600 mbar and any untrained
and unaided person subjected to that low pressure would die within minutes.

Below is a table of typical industrial vacuums, the referred "industrial range"

and equivalent in atmospheric altitude:

Application Range mbar Pascal Altitude

(km)
Vacuum cleaners very rough 900 - 700 ge4- 7e4 just above
vacuum sea level
Packaging rough vacuum 700 - 1 7e4- 1e2 6 - 50
Light bulbs, vacuum 1 - 1e-4 E2- e-2 50 - 120 ....
optical coating
processes
PECVD vacuum 1 - 5e-1 100 - 50 50- 70
Sputter vacuum 1e-2- 5e-3 1 - 5e-1 70 -80
B6xc()ater . vacuum 18-3-5e-4 1e-1- 5e-2 80 - 120
evaporator
Electronic high vacuum 1e-4- 5e-8 1e-2 - 5e-6 120 - 275
materials, sputter
base pressure
Surface studies, ultra high below 1e-8 below 1e-6 above 275
space simulations vacuum

Principle~h)f Vacuum Technology 2

 1.4 Important simple pressure relationships

The pressure inside a vessel filled with gas depends on vessel volume,
number of gas particles inside the vessel and the gas temperature.

P = k NTN

where k = Solzmann's constant

N = number of particles
T = temperature
V = volume

If the temperature and the volume is kept constant then:

PIN = constant

So in this case (volume and tempeiture constant) we can create a vacuum

by removing particles from the volume (Le. pumping).

If the amount of gas (number of particles).and the volume remain constant

then:

P11T1 =P21T2
In this case we could create a vacuum by lowering the temperature of the gas
in the vessel. The practical importance is that a change in pressure is
proportional to a change in temperature. For example, it illustrates that we
need to keep the temperature of our vacuum vessel as constant as possible
in order to avoid process fluctuations clueto temperature changes.

For a given number of particles (a gi~,en mass of gas) at a fixed temperature

we have:

PN1 = PN2

This is how compressors work. If we reduce the volume of a given mass of

gas (e.g. piston compressing in a cylinder) we increase the pressure of the
gas. For example, petrol engines have a compression ration of 10/1.

If we increase the volume we create a vacuum. For example, if we have a 50

litre chamber (small sputter chamber) at atmosphere and want to create 1e-4
mbar base pressure by increasing the volume we would need to expand the
50 litres out to 500,000 cubic meters (a decompression ratio of 1/10,000,000).

Let's look at a simplified practical example of a turbo molecular pump, which

operates below 5e-2 mbar. If we use that pump to lower the pressure of that 50
litre vessel from 5e-2 mbar to 1e-4mbar then we need to "expand" that 50 litre
volume at 5e-2 mbar to 25,000 litres to get to the 1e-4mbar. A typical turbo
molecular pump for such a process vessel size has a pumping capacity of
200 to 300 litres/second. Such a pump would bring the pressure inside that

Principles of Vacuum Technology -'I.. 3

 vessel down form 5e-2 mbar to 1e-4mbar in 125 to 80 seconds (given no
outgassing and other gas loads).

We will treat pumps and proper pump equations in more detail later. This is
just a very simple "order of magnitude" example to put in perspective the
"large" pumping capacity of high vacuum pumps (at that low pressure).

1.5 Base pressure and starting pressure

We refer to starting pressure simply as the pressure we need to reach before

starting our process. The base pressure is the lowest pressure our vacuum
system can achieve in practice (sometimes also called the ultimate pressure).
Obviously, we need to design vacuum systems capable of pulling base
pressures at least as low or lower than th-erequired starting pressure.

As a rule of thumb, a good system may pull a base pressure about 1 order of
magnitude below starting pressure. Whilst not absolutely necessary it is an
indication of good system design and maintenance. For our purposes the
starting pressure in turn should be about 2 orders of magnitude below process
pressure. This means that we then keep any gas contamination (due to
residue gas) at around 1 % of the total process gas (although we "achieved"
reasonable good results in the lab with much "dirtier" processes).

The process pressure is the pressure we actually run our process at. Other
applications such as electronic (silicon) circuit wafers and magnetic media
manufacture need much cleaner processes and hence starting pressures 3 or
more orders of magnitude below process pressure.

In practical terms to be able to lower the base pressure by one order of

magnitude may easily cost up to one order of magnitude more in vacuum
equipment. So "over designing" a system can be costly and knowing exactly
how "clean" a (high vacuum) vacuum one really needs is important.

1.6 Partial pressures

The gas inside a vacuum vessel is made up of a mix of gases. For starters,
we open our vessel to air at atmosphere, close and start pumping down. At
base pressure we the still have (rarefied) air and hence the vessel contains
nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapour, etc. and various other
contaminants outgassing from the chamber walls and components. We then
back fill the chamber with argon up to the desired process pressure.

The total pressure in our system is simply the sum of the partial pressures of
the various gases:

Ptotal= P1 + P2 + P3 + P4 .....

where P1 , P2, P3, P4 and so on are the partial pressure of gas 1, gas 2, gas
3 and so on.

Principles of VacuUm Technology 4

 1.7 Saturation vapour pressure

In simple terms the saturation vapour pressure is the threshold pressure

below which a liquid turns into a vapour. Heating the liquid increases the
saturation vapour pressure. For example, at atmospheric pressure water boils
at 100 C. If kept at 20 C then water boils at 23 mbar. More volatile
substances boil at higher saturation vapour pressure, such as acetone, which
boils at 250 mbar at 20 C.

The practical implications are that in our vacuum system any water that
conqensed on the chamber walls will not evaporate until the vacuum reaches
below 23 mbar. This is when the liquid droplets evaporate and form a gas
adding to pressure and volume for the pumps to carry out. Hence, just at 23
mbar we usually observe a "hump" in our pump down curve. Similarly, more
volatile substances outgas at a higher pressure which may also be observed
as humps (check for the 250 mbar acetone hump)
,)'
This also means we cannot use normal oils -and greases inside vacuum as
mineral oils and greases in particular have a high saturation vapour pressure
which would contaminate our process.

Thus, high vacuum pump oils such as Apiezon are synthetic oils with very low
saturation vapour pressure (Le. Apiezon SVP at 20 Cis e-6mbar.). Some
super clean processes even need total dry conditions and hence "dry", oil-free
pumps.

The practical implications are that minute amounts of water (and grease) such
as finger prints evaporate at say 23 mbar and will add volume to the pump
load. A 1 cm3 of water vapour generated at 23 mbar would expand to 230
litres at the time an e-4 mbar base pressure is feached. Plastic lenses for
example contain considerable amount of water.

1.8 Speed of gas molecules

Gas molecules move about at a random motion at very high (super sonic)
speeds which are independent of pressure. Lighter gases move faster than
heavier gases. For example:

Gas Speed (m/sec)

Hydrogen 1800
Helium 1250
Oxygen 430

For comparison the speed of sound is about 330 m/sec.

All gases contained in a vacuum vessel will disperse quickly and evenly fill out
the space.

Principles of Vacuum Technology 5

 1.9 Mean free path

The mean free path of a moving molecule is the average distance travelled
between collisions with other gas molecules. The mean free path depends on
pressure. For example:

Pressure Mean free path

(mbar) (cm)
1 7e-3
e-1 7e-2
e-2 0.7
e-3 7
e-4 70

This has important consequent for the type of vacuum we need to use for our
processes.

2. Gas flow in vacuum

2.1 Flow rate - pump rate

The gas flow rate through a pipe is equivalent to a volume of gas moved from
'a' to 'b' in a given time, or:

5 = VIt (in litres/second)

The flow rate quantity'S' is usedto describethe "pumping rate" or

"pumping capacity" or just "pumping speed" of a vacuum pump. For
example, a typical turbo molecular pump might be quoted to have a pumping
capacity of S = 500 lis. A large oil diffusion pump might have a pumping
capacity of 10,000 lis.
Backing pumps such as rotary vane roughing pumps are usually quoted in
m3/hr because their pumping capacity is lower than that of high vacuum
pumps (higher pressure regime). For example, large backing pump might
typicallyhaveS = 65 m3/hr(whichis "only"18 lis).

2.2 Mass flow rate - leak rate

The flow rate'S' is a quantity independent of pressure and does not provide
any information about the mass of a gas being transported.

Multiplying the flow rate'S' with pressure 'P' gives us the mass flow rate:

Q =PS =PV/t (usually in millibar litres/second)

The mass flow rate 'Q' is also used to describe, 'throughput' or 'leak rate' or
'outgassing rate' or just 'gas load'.

All real vacuum systems have some leakage (Q,) and outgassing (Qg). The
total gas load is simply the sum of the individual sources of gas:

Principles of Vacuum Technology

 Q = QI + Qg + Q.....
We see immediately then that there is always a limit to the achievable lowest
pressure no matter how large a pump we chose:

P = Q/S

No matter how small the gas load Q is (due to leak or outgassing), we would
need an infinite pumping capacity S to reach a zero pressure. We can
therefore make some rough estimate about the leak rate of our system. For
example, in the kombi reactor we achieve a "base" pressure in the sputter
chamber of 1e-5 mbar with the "sputter" pumps running and the cooling
station under vacuum.
The pumping capacity is roughly 300 lis, so we have roughly 3e-3 mbar I/sec
of total leak rate into our system. With the-cooling station vented we only
achieve a pressure of 1e-4 mbar so now we have a leak rate of 3e-2 mbar
Isec. So we may conclude that the leak rate across the gate valve is 3e-3
mbar IIsec- 3e-3 mbar I/sec = 2.7e-2 mbar I/sec "'"
./

Mass Flow Controllers (MFC) usually use the units of sccm to describe a
controlled gas 'leak' rate into the vacuum system. The unit 'sccm' stands for
"standard cubic centimetre per minute". A common jargon used for 'sccm' is
"scims". A common sputter process for example would use about 30 "scims"
of argon and maybe 10 "scims" of oxygen. Remember that "scims" this strictly
an invalid "unit" and is only a sloppy use of jargon, but many people in the
field use it so you better know what it means.
The correct description of the sccm is the "the flow of 1 cm3 of gas per minute
at OoCat atmospheric pressure". So in other words 1 sccm is equivalent to
0.017 mbar litres/second (1.7e-2 mbar I sec).

Going back to the above example we now see that the ieak rate across that
gate valve is then around 2.7/1.7 = 1.6 sccm. Give and take some error from
the effective pump speed which we don't know (discl!3sed later) we can say
that we have the equivalent of 1 to 2 sccm of flow at stray gas (air) into a
process that uses say 10 sccm of oxygen, a noi~e of 10 to 20 % which is too
much.

An easy and direct way to actually measure the leak rate quite accurately is to
shut off (isolate) the pump at base pressure and to measure the pressure
increase in the chamber over some time. If we know the chamber volume
then:

Q =t>.PV/t
where t>.Pis the pressure increase in the chamber over time t, and V is the
volume of the chamber.

There are some "good vacuum practice" accepted leak rate tolerances for
vacuum systems. For example, for a sputter process (medium vacuum) the
system should have a leak rate of better than e-10 to e-8 mbar I/sec. The
(FIST) PECVD process (rough vacuum) might get away with leak rate of e-3
mbar IIsec. So in any case e-2 mbar I/sec is generally unacceptable.

Principles of Vacuum Technology 7

 2.3 Types of gas flows

The behaviour of gas flowing through a vacuum pipe changes with the
pressure inside that pipe.
There are simple relationships between the gas flow types, gas flow rate and
diameter '0' of the pipe the gas is flowing through.

Gas flow type Description Relationship

Fluid Turbulent: Q > 200 0
Gas swept along in a rush of swirls and
eddies. Mean free path is small
compared to D.
Viscous: Q < 100 D
Flow is streamlines with maximum gas
velocity at centre of pipe and zero at the
walls. Mean free path is still small
compared to D.
Intermediate Between fluid and molecular. Not well Roughly in the
understood range 0.1 to 10
mbar.
Molecular Mean free path is much greater than D. P < e-2 - e-1
Gas particles stick and re-emit from mbar
walls and move at random. Diffusion
process independent of pressure
differentials.

In simplistic terms we may view the fluid flow regime as that where real
"suction" does occur whilst the molecular regime is that of complete random
motion of particles.

2.4 Perfect vacuum system

In a perfect system our pump would remove a constant volume of gas per unit
time independent of pressure. In addition, we would have no outgassing,
leaks or any other gas loads.

For such a system, using a pump with a pumping capacity of'S', the time 't'
taken to pump a volume 'V' from 'Po'to 'P1'is:

t = 2.3 VIS log10 Pol P1

2.5 Real vacuum system

We have already seen that outgassing alone adds a limit to the achievable
ultimate (base) pressure. In general, the limitations on ultimate pressure are:

. Pump limitations - mechanical, gas back streaming, etc.

. Real leaks in system - simply "holes" in the system
. Virtual leaks - trapped gas, o-ring outgassing, internal water leaks, etc.
. Permeation of gas through material (To He everything looks like a sieve)

Principles of Vacuum Technology".' 8

 . Vapour pressure of material inside system - fingerprints, greases, plastics,
etc.
For example, we cannot reduce the pressure below the SVP of the most
volatile material (e.g. water) untilthat material has been completely
evaporated (Le.boiledoff).
The gas composition does change through a pump down sequence from
mostly air at atmosphere to mostly water vapour at around 23 mbar.
Eventually, other substances with lower SVP will become dominant once the
water vapour is pumped out.

So instead of the ideal pump-down curve (below), the real pump-down curve
looks more like this (super imposed):

pressure versus time - pump-down curve

#'
./

I
- Ideal
-+- real pUIl"p curve
QI
...
~
I/)
I/)
QI
...
c..

/"

time

2.6 Conductance

Conductance is the inverse of impedance or resistively. In vacuum we use the

term conductance to describe the relative ease of gas flow along a pipe or
within a vacuum system. Usually our aim is to maximise conductance. The
basic relationship of conductance is:

C =Q/(P1 P2) -
where Q is the gas flow rate (see also above) and P1is the high pressure and
P2 is the low-pressure side of our system (e.g. a pipe)

So for any system the conductance may be estimated by calculating Q and

measurements of P1 - P2.For examplemeasuringthe pressureat the pump
throat and multiplying this with the rated pump speed could estimate Q. (Le. Q
= PS). Obviously the quantity P1- P2(or D.P)will depend on the type of flow
regime, whether it be viscous or molecular. As a rule of thumb, the
conductance decreases with pressure up until about 0.1 mbar, below which
the conductance stays constant.

Principles of Vacuum Technology s

 For most standard vacuum components such as pipes, flanges openings and
so on the conductance has been calculated and is tabulated in vacuum
books.

For example the conductance of viscous flow through a cylindrical pipe is:

C = 1.36 D4 Pail (Iitres/second)

where 0 is the pipe diameter (in cm) and Payis the average pressure in the
pipe (Le. (P, - Pz)/2)and L is the pipe lengths (in cm).

The conductance of molecular flow through a cylindrical pipe is then:

C =12.1 D3/l (Iitres/second)

The tabulated formulas for conductance across an aperture (restriction) of

/'
"" area 'A' (in cmz) is as follows:

For conductance of viscous flow through an aperture:

C = 20 A (litres/second)

For conductance of molecular flow through an aperture:

C = 11.6 A (litres/second)

Within any vacuum system there are many components such a pipes,
apertures and chamber geometries that restrict flow. The total conductance
through our system can be combined of the individual components depending
on whether they are in parallel or in series.

. For parallel conductance:

CT = C, + C2 + C3 + ....

For series conductance:

1/ CT = 1/C1 + 1/C2 + 1/C3 + ....

We already recognise that conductance has a major effect on the "effective"

pump speed 'Sy'. The effective pump speed is what we have at the process
where it matters. If we know the conductance 'c' of our system then we can
. calculate the effective pumping speed. The relationship is as follows:

1/Sv =1/Sp + 1/C

where Sp is the rated pumping speed

We see that if C = 0 then Sy becomes zero too; hence we want high values of
C.

Principles of Vacuum Technology .~" 10

Let's see how significant conductance is at the molecular flow. Let's assume a
300 lIs pump with a ON 100 flange (Le. 100 mm flange) mounted direct onto
the chamber of 25 mm wall thickness and let's look at the effective pump
speed. Then let's add a 100 mm pipe flange to the pump. say because there
is some space restriction that prevent us from mounting the pump closer to
the chamber.

In the first case the pump speed is reduced from 300 to 282 lis, or a reduction
of 6%. In the second case the pump speed is reduced down to 229 lIs. or a
reduction of 24%.

What if we use a ON 160 flange instead? In this case the effective pump
speed becomes 279 lis or a reduction of 7%.

So we see that to compensate for the loss of pumping speed by moving the
pump only 100 mm away we would have to use the next larger flange (Le. 16C
mm). ./""
2. VACUUM PUMPS

2.1 Displacement pumps

2.1.1 Description

Displacement pumps are mechanical pumps that isolate and bulk remove gas
molecules form the vacuum chamber. In other words they "grab" and move a
volume of gas at a time.
The common pumps (of interest to us) and their pressure range of use are
listed below:

Pump type Operating pressure Typical pump volume

Rotary vane 1000 mbar - e-3 mbar up to about 65 m3/hour
Rotary piston 1000 mbar - e-3 mbar 30 - 1500 m3/hour
Mechanical booster 10 mbar - e-4 mbar 100 - 150 m3/hour
~
./

The rotary vane and rotary piston pump are working basically on the same
principle but their detailed design and internal shape differs. The rotary vane
pump uses a rotating sliding vane rather than a rotating "piston". The
mechanical tolerance for the former is about 0.2 - 0.3 J.land for the latter it is
about 0.1 mm.
The vacuum seal is essential provided by an oil film (low SVP) between the
moving parts and the pump walls. The working temperature of a rotary pump
is about 70DC.In fact, the pump must be operated at that temperature to
function properly as will be seen later.

The tight mechanical tolerances makes rotary pumps quite susceptible to

particulates, dirty oils and or low oil levels.

The op~rating range means that rotary pumps work from the fluid flow (from
atm08phere) down to the molecular flow. However, their pumping capacity
sharply drops off at the onset of the molecular range (at about 1 mbar) and
they are not really used to maintain vacuum at processes operation below 1
mbar.

Rotary vane pumping speed

120

100 -

c 80
~
"'C 60
CD
CD
Co
en 40

20

0
1.E+03 1.E+O2 1.E+01 1.E+00 1.E-O1 1.E-02 1.E-03

pressure (mbar)

'... 12
Principles of Vacuum Technology
 For that reason, rotary pumps are generally used as "backing" (or roughing)
pumps for high vacuum pumps and not directly for any vacuum process itself.
High vacuum pumps, such us oil diffusion and turbo molecular pumps
therefore need to be able to compress to at least 0.1 to 1 mbar or the rotary
pumps won't be able to carry enough (process) gas loads.

Sometimes, high gas load is an issue even at the 1-mbar ranges and this is
where mechanical boosters (or commonly "roots blower") are put in series
between a rotary pump and a high vacuum pump.
Because their high gas load pumping capacity at the medium vacuum range,
roots blowers can be used directly for some high-pressure processes such as
PECVD deposition and etching. Roots blowers are relative cheap (compared
to a turbo pump) and very capable of dealing with quite an amount of
particulates such as may be produced in PECVD processes (e.g. PECVD
"snow").
However, roots blowers always need a backing pump, as they cannot
compress up to atmosphere. Most vacuum pump suppliers therefore offer
ready made "pump stack" packages which is a roots blower mounted onto 2/
matched rotary pump. For planning and design purposes one may therefore
treat the "pump stack" as a single pump.

2.1.2 The pump-down equation

The pump down equation is also known as the "Geade equation". Let's recall
that we need to know the effective pump speed Syfor making any estimate on
pressure or pump down time in our process space.

lISv = 1/Sp + 1/C

We already quoted the pump-down equation for an ideal system is (Le. S is

independent of P and there is no outgassing):

t =2.3 VIS 10910 P11 P2

This is what happens. Recall that a pumping speed S at a pressure P

produces a mass low rate (or gas flow rate) of Q:

Q = PS = PV/t

The quantity Q is the gas flow rate or amount of gas flowing per unit time (Le.
per second).

So let's assume the amount of gas leaving the chamber (through the pump)
per second is

Qy = PSy

Let's also assume the amount of gas entering the chamber per second at the
same time is QL (due to outgassing, etc.). So the net amount of gas flow per
unit time is:

Qy - QL or PSy- QL

Principles of Vacuum Technology 13

 Combining that with the relationship Q =PV/t we get (if P2< Pi):
PSy - QL = - (P2V - PN)/(t2 -~) or

-(ilP/ilt )V = PSy- QL

If ilP and ilt become infinitesimal then

-(dP/dt)V = PSy - QL

In rough vacuum S is nearly independent of P and Q is negligible and hence

we may assume QL = O.
Hence:

-dP/dt = PSyN
""
./
If the starting pressure Pi at time ti is = 0 and integrating from the starting
pressure Pi to the end pressure P2we get:

Integral: dP/P = -(SyN)t

In(PiPi) =- (SvN) t

Sy =In(P1/P2)VIt, or
Sy = 2.3 10910(P1/P2)V/t
"

where Sy is the effective pump speed at the chamber inlet (at the process), Pi
is the starting r.i essure, P2is the final pressure and t is the time to pump from
Pi to P2.

Example:

Let's look at our load-lock example on the kombi. Here we had a 38 I load lock
volume and a pumping speed of approximately 50m3/hror about 1411sec(we
use something like a 65m3/hrpump and as a rule of thumb we may assume
around a 25% loss in pumping speed because the conductance of the
plumbing, etc.).
Let's calculate the time it takes to pump from 1000 to 1 mbar, which is the
working pressure in the PECVD chamber, and let's calculate the pressure we
are likely to reach in the load lock before opening the gate valve to the
PECVD chamber. Using the pump down equation we get:

t = V/Sy In(P1/P2) = 18.75 seconds

This we know is too long as we only got less than 10 seconds available to
pump. We can re-arrange the formula to work out what the pressure really is
after 10 seconds:

." 14
Principles of Vacuum Technology