Development of a data acquisition system for a vacuum thin film deposition equipment

Abstract

Digital data acquisition is a must for precise data collection, and monitoring systems should be present on all modern equipment. This article focuses on improving the vacuum deposition systems already present in the SMARTMAT laboratory at the University of Oradea. Previous advancements have been made in installing vacuum chambers and digitally monitoring the vacuum level with the final objective of having a complete and versatile vacuum deposition system: magnetron sputtering, RF sputtering, and resistive heating. This article proposes a complex monitoring system based on modern sensors, data acquisition modules, and a processing and storage unit capable of monitoring all the vacuum deposition steps regarding the resistive heating system. The monitoring system can show real-time charts and store all the data in a database to be further used in modeling. As we already have a digital monitor system for the vacuum level, we have developed a monitoring system for temperature, voltage, and current, thus completing the design and controlling the whole evaporation process.