SPI Plasma Prep™ Plasma Cleaner

For the removal of contamination in an electron microscope using a plasma cleaner according to US Patent No 5,510,624

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"SPI Plasma Prep Plasma Cleaner in operation"

SPI Plasma Prep Plasma Cleaner inserted
but without shielding installed.

SPI Plasma Prep Plasma Cleaner with
shielding installed.

SPI Plasma Prep Plasma Cleaner when opened
to the atmosphere with nothing inside.

The SPI Plasma Prep™ Plasma Cleaner is a compact "bench top" sized plasma cleaner, that uses the "dry plasma process" for the removal of contamination on the TEM specimen holder, the sample itself, and also the part of the rod assembly for side entry goniometer stages actually seeing the high vacuum. This technology is generally thought to be applicable mainly for materials sciences investigators and not for life science investigators, or those working with polymers or other organic materials.

This is the same type of plasma cleaner instrument that was used by Dr. Nestor Zaluzec when the basic work was done that led up to the discovery that if this kind of contamination is removed, with this kind of approach, the contamination rates on samples are greatly reduced, and therefore, one sees a significant increase in the contrast and over all quality of the data in the final TEM image.

SPI Supplies manufactures and offers for sale plasma cleaning equipment for this purpose according to the terms of a license agreement granted by Argonne National Laboratory.

Special features:

Air vent bleed control valve: Allows operator to precisely control the rate of air flow when venting to the chamber. A sudden rush of air could disturb a fragile sample. The valve is inside the cabinet of the plasma cleaner to discourage unauthorized tampering of the bleed rate.

Preset to operate at maximum 10 watts power, for use with argon without having deleterious impact on either the specimen holder, rod, or the specimen itself. This low power is enough to dislodge surface held contamination but not enough to actually "etch" the sample or rod or holder assembly.

Barrel type design for isotropic plasma cleaning which is the ideal geometry of the plasma to get into the various "nooks and crannies" of the specimen holder and contact areas between the specimen itself and the holder assembly.

Compact, Efficient Design:

Dimensions:

Highly portable: Weight is only 32 lbs (14.5kg), not including the weight of the separately installed rotary ("mechanical") pump.

Make sure you appreciate the following: Sometimes there is some confusion of the terminology, that is, what is a plasma etcher vs. what is a plasma cleaner. Generally speaking, a plasma etcher is a unit that operates at 100 watts or higher but a plasma cleaner operates at power levels perhaps as low as 10 watts, but not more than about 50 watts. If your application is to remove photoresist, for example, from a silicon wafer, then what you really do need is a plasma etcher, and we would recommend our SPI Plasma Prep™ II unit.

Plasma cleaning, using a far lower power and is designed literally to "tickle" the top surface of anything is sees, so for the purpose of removing thin adsorbed layers of contamination on a TEM foil sample for example, or on the sample holder itself, a low power plasma cleaner will do the job just fine. Indeed, using argon for example, at higher power could actually "etch" and cause damage to the metal parts of the microscope stage. So if what you need is truly a plasma cleaner, read on. If not, then consider the SPI Plasma Prep™ II plasma etcher.

Operation is simple...
Insert the rod and holder assembly into the glass reaction chamber, introduce your choice of gas, either oxygen or argon or both (depending on the specimen being examined), reduce the pressure to 200 µm and apply RF power (13.56 MHz) to the chamber. This excites the gas molecules present to a highly reactive plasma state. At the 10 watt operation level, one is easily able to remove the slightly held contamination that is responsible for loss of contrast and image quality in most TEMs. Note: The primary application of this technique is for the materials scientist operating at high resolution levels and in general is not applicable to the typical life science researcher. We are always on the lookout for anyone who might furnish us such life sciences applications!

Plasma Prep™ Plasma Cleaner
Including special front end accommodation port for the rod of your choice and everything else needed for operation of the unit as described above

	SPI #	Price	In Stock
110v	11007-AB	$13296.15	No
220/240v	11007-AX	13475.87	No
Optional items
Vacuum Gauge
Allows accurate prediction of plasma cleaning time for critical samples	11019-AB	978.73	Yes

Leybold Vacuum Pump	10405-AB	4325.00	Yes
Oil Mist Filter	10410LK-AB	399.67	Yes
Leybold Model RST16KF Refillable Foreline Trap	10407FK-AB	705.53	Yes

Special Safety Message:
We recommend the Leybold 2.1 Cubic Feet /min pump charged with Fomblin^® pump fluid.

Check out our list of Spare Parts for the SPI Plasma Prep II.™

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