Multisource Evaporation
The advanced e-beam gun technology developed for the system produces high speed e-beam scanning (up to 100 kHz) and a small beam spot size (< 0.5 mm). This allows multiple crucibles to be placed in close proximity to one another for precise heating and vapor mixing.
Surrounding the crucibles with a gas jet enables vapor from the neighboring melt pools to intermix. Furthermore, the composition of the deposited layer can be controlled by altering the electron beam scan pattern to change the temperature (and thus the evaporation rate) of each source material. In essence, alloys with precisely controlled compositions can be created even when the vapor pressure difference between the elements is very large.