What is it about?
For the first time, the transportation of clusters inside a condensation chamber has been simulated using a Computational Fluidic Dynamic (CFD) software. Supported by experimental results, it was shown that the shape of vacuum chamber and the carrier gas inlet position can deeply influence the efficiency of the cluster formation and transportation. The cluster flux can be increased by up to 10 times by using the optimised configuration.
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Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We, for the first time, gave a detailed explanation how the cluster's movement is controlled jointly by the drag force and Brownian motion. The smaller clusters mostly show random Brownian motion, while the larger clusters are mostly dominated by drag force. As such, the transportation efficiency of different-sized clusters varies, and an optimum cluster source configuration with high flux can be rationally designed based on these principles.
Perspectives
Since entering the field of cluster science more than 15 years ago, I always heard people saying that the condensation chamber in a cluster-source was a 'black-box' and how little was known about the physics of the complex cluster formation process happening inside there. I hope the research work in this paper can be seen as part of the attempt to understand the physics of cluster formation and transportation.
Jinlong Yin
Teer Coatings Ltd
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Impact of the gas dynamics on the cluster flux in a magnetron cluster-source: Influence of the chamber shape and gas-inlet position, Review of Scientific Instruments, March 2021, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0028854.
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