New Materials and Modifications

I now have some new carbon fiber cloth from Fabtech Systems LLC http://www.fabtechsystems.com/index.html
to coat with the new Pd-Ti target from Lesker in my sputter coating
chamber. The converted sputter coater has undergone some modifications
to see if I can get it to perform better.  One of the
things I’ve been trying is lowering the voltage to the electrodes to
see if I can restrict plasma formation to the tips where the target is
mounted. I have also insulated the lower part of the electrodes to that
end. I also tried placing induction coils around the electrodes stems,
but this had no effect as the Variac current source I have only has a
10 amp output. I’ll have to see if I can get a current source with
higher amperage. I am using a Palladium target from another sputter
coater to test these modifications.

I
also purchased Neoprene rubber matt and made reusable gaskets for the
fuel cell. These should be a step up from the silicone we used before.
The idea at the time was to seal the cell for pressure tests. You can
see a photo of some Fabteck carbon cloth above inside a gasket I made,
trying it out for fit. You can see more photos of the new developments
in my photo section.