Design, development and performance of UHV chamber for in-situ magneto-optic Kerr effect and resistivity measurements

An UHV chamber is designed and developed for preparing thin films and multilayers of various elements, alloys and compounds using electron beam evaporation (EB) and ion beam sputtering (IBS) techniques. The developed chamber is equipped with magnetooptic Kerr effect (MOKE) and resistivity techniques in order to perform in-situ magnetic and transport properties measurements of ultra thin films. The calibration and performance of the developed chamber with deposition techniques is evaluated by depositing films of Fe and Si on float glass substrates. Systematic illustration of the versality of the UHV system has been done by performing in-situ MOKE and resistivity measurements simultaneously during the growth of Co film (from a fraction of a nm to 17 nm) on float glass (surface roughness 0.5 nm) and sheet glass (surface roughness 1.6 nm) substrate using electron beam evaporation. It is found that the substrate with higher roughness display maximum coercive field at Co thickness of 3.0 nm, while in case of smoother substrate the maximum coercive field is observed at 1.3 nm thick film.