JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020 - 62

TECHNOLOGY inside the lab

Advanced Composite Materials Facility
University of Southampton
The Advanced Composite Materials Facility (ACMF) is housed in a state-of-the-art laboratory within the
Chemistry Building at the University of Southampton. It incorporates thin film combinatorial synthetic
chambers and high-throughput characterisation tools for the discovery and optimisation of solid-state
materials and devices. Surface analytical tools are available for understanding the interfaces of materials.
A 150mm-based cluster production tool is housed within the facility for the incorporation of the wider
class of materials available using evaporation methods to be incorporated in thin film and micro-fabricated devices.

T

he facility houses extensive
high-throughput characterisation and screening tools
for thin film materials. In addition,
there are a number of surface science tools for the characterisation of
the interfaces at, and between, interfaces. The laboratory which houses
the ACMF was opened by the Rt.
Hon Greg Clark in November 2014.
The facility is also strategically supported by industrial partners such as
Ilika plc and DCA Instruments Oy.

Facts about ACMF:
- The ACMF houses a multi-chamber ultra high vacuum line for combinatorial thin film material synthesis,
device fabrication and surface analysis established through the UK Joint
Infrastructure Fund (JIF) in 2013
(£8M).
- It was refurbished and extended
in 2020 through support from Ilika
Technologies.
- The laboratory also incorporates a
manufacturing cluster tool based on the
same physical vapour deposition methods funded by EPSRC (£3.3M) in a
capital grant intended to support economic growth in the UK by investing in
'eight great technologies'.

Fig. 1: The Advanced Composite Materials Facility (ACMF)

This world-leading facility, which is unique
in the UK, will develop and manufacture
radically new and advanced composite materials for semi-conductor electronics, data
storage devices, sensors, and photonic devices as well as energy harvesting, conversion and storage devices.
The capability is provided through the synthesis of new materials on up to 150mm wafers, combined with the nearby clean room
facilities of the Optoelectronic Research
Centre (ORC) and Nanofabrication Centre
at the University of Southampton.
Multidisciplinary research
group and activities
The ACMF conducts multidisciplinary research activities, including:

62

jec composites magazine / N°136 September - October 2020

-	 Discovery, optimisation and characterisation of new thin film solid-state materials using combinatorial (compositional gradient)
multisource evaporation methods;
-	 High-throughput screening of new thin film
materials with respect to intrinsic properties,
and their properties when combined with other materials in devices;
-	 Use of multisource evaporative methods for
the fabrication of micro-fabricated device
structures;
-	 Correlation of composition, structure, interface and morphology with function;
-	 Providing support and partnership with academic research groups in the development of
materials and composites for electronic, photonic, sensor, energy harvesting, energy conversion and energy storage devices.
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020
