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Ion Optics' wins NSF SBIR/STTR Award

26 January 2000

Ion Optics' wins NSF SBIR/STTR Award for Real-Time Thin Film Deposition Thickness Monitors

    WALTHAM, Mass.--Jan. 25, 2000--Ion Optics has won a Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a simple in situ film thickness monitor, which can replace quartz crystal oscillators and other, more complex, instruments. This program is done in collaboration with Professor Ted Morse, at the Boston University Photonics Center, and Lasertron, (a division of Oak Industries, soon to be part of Corning, Inc.) a leading manufacturer of near-infrared (NIR) lasers for fiber optic communications networks.
    Thin-film deposition is an important step in the fabrication of every advanced optoelectronic or photonic device. Improved understanding of the film's structure, surface roughness, refractive index, defect density, and composition directly leads to lower costs, improved quality, and faster production rates. In fact, prototype testing in Lasertron's electron-beam evaporation process showed that real-time monitoring would improve the yields and double production throughput of their near-infrared (NIR) laser diodes. Further improvements to the thin film monitor should result in better quality optical coatings thereby allowing for improved NIR laser diode performance. Improved NIR laser diode performance will enable Lasertron to better service the world's demand for increased fiber optic communications bandwidth.
    Ion Optics is extending probe performance to provide information on film composition in addition to film thickness. This will make the same probe geometry useful for other thin film processes such as: chemical vapor deposition (CVD or MOCVD), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), sputtering or thermal evaporation. A simple, disposable probe for real time thickness and composition monitoring will improve throughput and yield in a variety of coating processes for semiconductor manufacturing and for industrial and consumer products.
    Ion Optics will present recent results and design details for this device at the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) meeting in San Jose. (Thursday, January 27th, 4:00pm, Paper number 3938-31)
    Five-year old Ion Optics manufactures proprietary, highly integrated, infrared (IR) sensor components. OEMs in the automotive, air quality, process control and medical instrument markets use our components. Ion Optics' mission is to employ its technologies to develop and manufacture compact, low power, infrared sensors.