Hi Jungwook,

As many others have already mentioned, placing nickel directly into a
copper hearth of an ebeam evaporator is very standard operation.  I
would add a technique that I was taught years ago by a knowledgeable
technician: Prior to using a new hearth, if you oxidize the copper
using hydrogen peroxide or other oxidizer, it helps to prevent
problems with metals fusing to the hearth.  It also simplifies the
maintenance and cleaning of the hearth.

Brad
_________________________________

Brad Cantos
brad.cantos@holage.com
http://holage.com




On Sep 24, 2009, at 11:32 PM, Jungwook Choi wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I tried to deposit 100 nm nickel film on silicon wafer by using e-
> beam or
> thermal evaporator. In both cases, the nickel pellets were utilized
> as a
> source.
>
> In the case of e-beam evaporation, the deposition rate was not over
> 0.1~0.2
> A/s. When I increased e-beam power to increase deposition rate, the
> graphite
> crucible was broken with cracks. Is there anyone that has experience
> to
> evaporate nickel using e-beam evaporation? Which type of nickel
> sources is
> adequate for this?
>
> Similarly, in the case of thermal evaporation, the tungsten boat was
> suddenly broken before evaporating nickel. The holes were observed
> in the
> broken tungsten boat. How to avoid the failure of tungsten boat? If I
> replace a tungsten boat to a tungsten helix coil with nickel wires
> as a
> source, could it be better in thermal evaporation?
>
> Any suggestions and comments would be highly appreciated regarding
> above
> issues.
>
> Additionally, does adhesion layer such as Cr and Ti is needed to
> deposit
> nickel on silicon? What is the optimum thickness of the adhesion
> layers?
>
> Thanks,
>
> J. Choi