Commercial applications of research institute Tandem accelerators: the Rossendorf example

The Ion Beam Center (IBC) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) is a unique user facility with decades of experience applying ion beams for materials analysis and modification. The IBC provides ion beams of nearly all stable elements in an unique energy range from some tens of eV up to 60 MeV using tandem accelerators and electrostatic ion implanters, focused ion beam systems, a helium ion microscope, highly-charged ions systems, as well as an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) and a secondary ion spectrometer combined with a tandem accelerator. Annually, the IBC offers more than 16.000 hours of beam time for research and industrial purposes to users across the globe. Continuous access to the IBC is permitted via an online proposal procedure [1, 2]. In addition to the beam time, the IBC provides numerous add-on services including sample preparation, clean-room processing, surface and thin film metrology, optical and electron-beam lithography, thermal processing, thin-film deposition, optical and electrical characterization, electron microscopy and spectroscopy, X-ray investigations, as well as simulation of ion-related processes and data evaluation.
Since 2011, the spin-off HZDR Innovation GmbH [3] shares the IBC equipment and offers fast and direct access to the IBC for commercial services. The activity of the spin-off is focused on the high-energy ion implantation mostly for doping and defect engineering of semiconductors. Up to 8 inch wafers are handled (semi-)automatically at accelerators of IBC under clean room conditions. Many leading international microelectronic companies are customers of HZDR Innovation GmbH. HZDR Innovation GmbH provides an important contribution to the development and production of novel techniques for micro and power electronics, making semiconductor devices more effective and climate-friendly.

[1] http://www.hzdr.de/db/Cms?pNid=3249
[2] https://gate.hzdr.de/user/
[3] http://hzdr-innovation.de/2/