A Cleanroom in a Glovebox

TL;DR

This paper introduces a versatile cleanroom-in-a-glovebox system that enables device fabrication and characterization in an inert atmosphere, reducing costs and expanding capabilities for sensitive materials and quantum device development.

Contribution

The authors present a novel glovebox-based cleanroom system that allows comprehensive fabrication and characterization in inert conditions, connecting seamlessly with UHV equipment.

Findings

Successful fabrication and characterization in argon atmosphere

Integration with UHV systems like MBE and STM demonstrated

Enables cost-effective and flexible cleanroom environment

Abstract

The exploration of new materials, novel quantum phases, and devices requires ways to prepare cleaner samples with smaller feature sizes. Initially, this meant the use of a cleanroom that limits the amount and size of dust particles. However, many materials are highly sensitive to oxygen and water in the air. Furthermore, the ever-increasing demand for a quantum workforce, trained and able to use the equipment for creating and characterizing materials, calls for a dramatic reduction in the cost to create and operate such facilities. To this end, we present our cleanroom-in-a-glovebox, a system which allows for the fabrication and characterization of devices in an inert argon atmosphere. We demonstrate the ability to perform a wide range of characterization as well as fabrication steps, without the need for a dedicated room, all in an argon environment. Connection to a vacuum suitcase is also demonstrated to enable receiving from and transfer to various ultra-high vacuum (UHV) equipment including molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).