Student Employment

There is an ongoing need for part-time help in operating the lab, maintaining the tools in it and assisting lab members with processing their samples.

The laboratory is designed as a place where experimenters work on their own projects. But, from time to time, the demands of time cause researchers to seek the help of laboratory personnel to carry out experimental steps, or occasionally entire projects. Exceptionally skilled assistants are required in the latter case.

The laboratory needs help at all levels, from the most basic beginner to the seasoned expert. A beginner need have only intelligence, curiosity and a measure of patience, not to mention a healthy dose of caution. Generally, ten hours per week is the minimum time commitment; it's difficult to make any progress in less time. To be recruited in an expert capacity, applicants must possess a combination of skills and interests applicable either to an existing aspect of the lab, or to an identified future need. At any level, the professional development of student employees is a priority.

Lab operation relies on a handful of fundamental operations: application of photoresist, creating or copying patterns into the photoresist, and transfer of photoresist patterns to an underlying film or substrate. These steps typically involve cleaning, coating, exposing, developing, etching and cleaning again. At least some of the operations will involve hazardous chemicals, such as strong acids or alkalis, and occasionally toxic materials.

Lab maintenance primarily revolves around the equipment, which includes devices to apply photoresist, print patterns in the resist and then transfer the pattern to an underlying substrate.

• Photoresist is applied by spin-casting, where a drop of "paint" is applied to a disk (wafer) of silicon, then revolved with an electric motor, to spread the resist in an astonishingly uniform thin film, a micron or two thick.
• Patterns are created and copied by exposure to ultraviolet light, either through a movable aperture (for the original) or a glass mask patterned with metal (to make copies).
• Liquid chemicals dissolve the exposed resist, revealing the underlying substrate which can either be etched using aggressive chemicals, or coated with another material, such as metal, using some combination of vacuum and chemical processes.
• After processing, the residual resist and any other unwanted leftovers have to be removed by any of a host of cleaning techniques.
• At selected intervals in the process, it becomes necessary to use measuring instruments to characterize things like film thickness, feature size and profile.

For more information, please contact the Lab Director, Frank Yaghmaie.