Tergeo Series Tabletop Plasma Cleaners

Plasma cleaning, etching, surface treatment

Tergeo, Tergeo-plus, and Tergeo-Pro, tabletop plasma cleaners and etching systems for research, development, and low-volume production

Generate oxygen, argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, CF4, SF6, ambient air, or other mixed gas plasma to ash photoresist, descum after patterning, etch silicon dioxide and nitride, remove hydrocarbon and other surface contamination, change surface energy and improve the bonding strength. Tergeo series plasma systems are vacuum plasma system that needs to be operated under low pressure. The chamber diameter is 4.3″/110mm, 6.3″/160mm, and 9″/230mm. The depth of the chamber is 11″/280mm or 13.4″/340mm. It is a low-cost high-performance laboratory plasma cleaner built upon the technology developed at the Plasma and Ion Beam Technology Group in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Tergeo series plasma systems have been well received by the academic communities worldwide. The scientific papers carried out with the Tergeo plasma system have exploded in the past two years! Please search “Tergeo plasma” on Google Scholar and take a look! We expect our user base in academic communities will continue to grow fast because we brought the latest plasma technology to the academic communities and build versatile, reliable plasma systems with a repeatable performance at an affordable price.

For TEM and SEM customers, please check out our Tergeo-EM tabletop plasma system and EM-KLEEN remote plasma system.

Tergeo-EM plasma cleaner with Thermo Fisher TEM specimen holders

Please contact us for a price quote today!

Typical applications:

Why choose Tergeo plasma cleaner

Better plasma uniformity with external electrode design
Unique plasma sensor technology for quantitative plasma intensity measurement
Direct/immersion mode and remote/downstream plasma processing mode in one system
Continuous and pulsed plasma can change the cleaning speed by 3-4 orders of magnitude.
High frequency 13.56MHz rf power supply with automatic impedance matching. MHz plasma system is many times more efficient than KHz plasma system at the same rf power rating.
Advanced process control technology
Mass flow controller (MFC) regulated gas input instead of manual rotameter or coarse needle valve
Advanced digital pressure sensor for accurate pressure monitoring
Fully automatic operation with 20 recipe support
Intuitive resistive touchscreen user interface
External RF electrode and quartz chamber can eliminate the metal contamination issue on plasma systems with internal metal electrodes

Elegant and intuitive design

We are not developing another plasma system. We integrate many modern design concepts into an affordable tabletop plasma system. We understand the importance of consistency and repeatability for scientific research and production runs. Therefore, we integrated multiple process control technologies to monitor and control the critical parameters, such as plasma sensor, pressure sensor, and automatic mass flow controller for gas input. The operation of the Tergeo plasma cleaner is fully automatic. An intuitive user interface together with a 7-inch touchscreen make the operation of a scientific instrument as easy as a smart pad. The Embedded microcontroller supports customizable recipes. With advanced process control technologies, the Tergeo series plasma treatment system can deliver repeatable performance in day-to-day operation for different users.

User interface for plasma cleaning equipment — Touchscreen controller and intuitive user interface

Quantitative plasma intensity measurement technology

Tergeo series plasma cleaner integrated patent-pending plasma sensor technology from PIE Scientific. Plasma intensity is measured quantitatively and displayed on the LCD touchscreen controller in real-time. Quantitative data is the key to achieving repeatable and consistent results. With the help of the plasma sensor, the user doesn’t need to be a plasma expert to optimize recipes for their applications. The plasma intensity sensor can also be used as an indicator for end-point detection in oxygen plasma ashing of organic materials, such as photoresists.

Direct and downstream plasma processing modes in one system

Direct mode and downstream mode plasma cleaning and etching

Tergeo series plasma cleaners are the most advanced tabletop plasma cleaners on the market. Unlike most other plasma cleaners, Tergeo series plasma cleaners have integrated two different plasma sources in one machine—-an in-situ direct plasma source and a remote plasma source. The main sample chamber is made of high-purity quartz. When plasma is generated inside the main sample chamber, it is called direct mode processing. Samples are immersed in plasma in this operation mode. Samples are subject to both energetic ion bombardment and chemical reactions with neutral radical species. Direct mode processing is good for high-speed etching, directional anisotropic etching, and surface modification. However, if the sample contains 1D / 2D materials, thin gate oxide, ESD sensitive device, anti-reflective coating, graphene, nanotube, nanoparticles, DLC (diamond-like carbon), carbon fiber, or holey carbon grid for TEM, direct mode processing may cause irreversible damage to the sample. In this case, downstream processing mode is recommended. In this mode, plasma is generated inside a remote plasma source attached to the side of the main sample chamber. Only neutral radical species generated inside the remote plasma source can diffuse into the sample chamber and etch away contaminants on the sample surface. Energetic ions are confined in the remote plasma source. Therefore, there is no ion sputtering damage to the sample surface.

Continuous and pulsed plasma

Tergeo plasma systems not only adjust rf power at a 1-watt interval but also create continuous or pulsed plasma. The pulse ratio can be adjusted from 100% to less than 1%. The pulsed mode can further increase the dynamic range of plasma intensity generated inside the Tergeo plasma system. Together with the downstream/direct cleaning mode, rf power wattage adjustment, the Tergeo plasma systems can change the plasma intensity by 3-4 orders of magnitude. They can be fast enough to ash photoresist at a speed of about 1um/minute. It can also be gentle enough to functionalize 2D graphene and other 2D or 1D materials without damaging the single layer fragile film.

Pulsed plasma can be used to generate low-intensity, well-controlled plasma for 2D materials research, TEM/SEM holey carbon grid and sample cleaning, PDMS bonding, and other applications.In a traditional plasma system, the user may only be able to expose the fragile sample for several seconds or less. But Tergeo plasma system can extend the processing time from seconds to minutes by using pulsed plasma technology. Plasma processes may not be very repeatable if the processing time is shorter than seconds because the plasma is not stable yet. Extending the processing time with weaker plasma can greatly improve the process stability.

Pulsed mode plasma cleaning equipment — Pulsed mode operation can ignite plasma at high pressure with lower average power.

Recipe and job sequence

A recipe on the Tergeo plasma system controls the selection of plasma processing mode (immersion or downstream), gas flow rate from different gas channels, rf power level, rf pulse duty ratio, cleaning time, and purging action after cleaning. One recipe can only perform a single plasma treatment step. Tergeo plasma cleaner also supports “Job sequence” operation. A job sequence executes up to three processing steps (e.g. three recipes) sequentially with just one click.

Tabletop Plasma Cleaners