Laboratory, optical and precision equipments (excl. glasses)

Description

In order to fulfil the increasing demand for a specific optical measurements inside cleanroom at DTU Nanolab, an integrated and calibrated microscopic system is currently under consideration, which can combine basic optical characterisations with accurate spectroscopic measurements. The equipment must be pre-calibrated free from measurement errors, in the same time it has to be able to extract various microscopic information quantitatively, as reflection, transmission, fluorescence, polarisation, etc. A high spatial resolution is needed for characterisation of small sampling areas, and the spectral range must cover UV-visible-NIR wavelengths in order to serve different research interests as biology, photonics, semiconductor physics and material science. The instrument must have a user friendly interface design, thus can easier benefit both researchers and students from different backgrounds with different purposes. Considering the demand from the department, a single microspectrophotometer would be the only option, and there are some concrete technical requirements which are listed below. 1) The whole system must be designed to do optical measurements in a wide spectrum range in UV-vis-NIR wavelengths (ca 200 nm to 2 500 nm). This requires both illumination source and detector to be able to cover a wide wavelength range (at least between 400 nm and 2 500 nm). Besides, all the optical components (such as objectives, polarisers and analysers) shouldn’t have high absorbance in the working wavelengths (e.g. quartz optical elements should be chosen to enable high transmission over 90 %). A good measurement accuracy is also necessary, the spectral resolution should be below 0.5 nm in visible wave-lengths and few nanometers in NIR. Besides, a tunable sampling area is required for optical measurements on structures with various sizes, a high spatial resolution is needed with the smallest sampling area below 5 μm by 5 μm, therefore a high sensitivity is also needed on the photodetector. 2) The instrument must have a compact design to be compatible with our cleanroom facilities. Since the instrument will be installed inside a cleanroom for easy characterisations, it has to fulfill safety regulations. It shouldn’t interfere with other cleanroom facilities by generating noises, vibrations or particles, in the same time the performance of the equipment shouldn’t be disturbed by the cleanroom environment. Due to the space limitation inside cleanroom, the footprint of instrument has to be small, less than 1 m by 2 m. 3) The machine must be pre-calibrated with satisfactory reliability and validity of measurements, all the reflection and transmission measurements should be traceable to NIST standards. The cleanroom at DTU Nanolab is ISO 9001 certified and it is essential that the measuring tools in the cleanroom fulfil high quality standards (ISO 9001 or similar). For a multi-user environment inside cleanroom, it is especially crucial that the measurements have to be valid free from system errors and noises. The setup must be robust and pre-calibrated for repeatable measurements, and manual calibration must also be available with accessibility to standard reference samples. 4) Capability for multiple optical measurements is required, including reflection, absorption and transmission measurement on a wide wavelength range from UV to NIR. Polarisers and analysers must be installed on the equipment for measurement of polarisations. Fluorescence measurement is needed for biological studies. Mapping function with a motorised stage is also under consideration, and the possibility for installation in the future when needed is necessary. 5) The equipment must be friendly to operate with a well-designed user interface. Software have to be pre-installed for measurements and basic data analysis, thus new users with a reasonable education level (e.g. a bachelor level) can be trained in few hours to operate the machine independently. 6) The supplier must be able to offer installation services and training sessions in a satisfactory level. High quality customer service is expected.