This is an old revision of the document!
Location
Owen Hall, OSU campus. Maintained by School of EECS. Staffed by Chris Tasker. Chris' task to oversee the cleanroom is Herculean; he shoulders incredible responsibilities cheerfully and professionally, and with very little staff support. You should obey every instruction or suggestion and do whatever he asks by yesterday, if not sooner. You should volunteer to help without being asked. If you ever cause Chris intentional inconvenience or you behave in an unsafe or irresponsible manner in the cleanroom, you will be asked to leave the Tate group.
Equipment
Spinner
From Chris Tasker 4/2011
The most common way for the spinners in the 418 lab to fail is for liquids to make it into the vacuum port and/or down the outside of the motor shaft. ALL LIQUIDS (photoresist, acetone, alcohol, water, etc. etc…) should be kept away from the vacuum port and motor shaft. The motor shaft is the shaft sticking straight up that rotates the chuck, and the vacuum port is the hole in the center of that shaft.
There are a few common ways for liquids to reach these locations. The first is substrates that are smaller than the chuck. The substrate should always be larger than the spinner chuck you are using, otherwise photoresist can be sucked under the substrate and into the vacuum port through the small hole in the center of the chuck.
The second is during cleaning of the spinner and/or removing the spinner chuck. DO NOT use acetone, alcohol, or any other solvent to rinse directly on the outside of the motor shaft, or to flush the vacuum port in order to try and unclog it. Also DO NOT use solvent to ‘unstick’ a chuck that is hard to remove. Note that the small chuck, which many researchers use, has a very tight fit. It is hard to remove, but this is just friction and does not mean it is stuck on with photoresist.
Finally, operating the spinner with any of the covers removed may result in liquids reaching the motor shaft.
If any researcher that uses the 418 spinners has any questions at all regarding this please contact me. I would be happy to review your process and suggest any modifications necessary. These spinners will continue to work properly for many years if we follow these simple rules.
