Aligner/Bonder for Fabrication of Nanoscale Spectral and Polarimetric Sensors

The Center for High Technology Materials CHTM at the University of New Mexico had requested funds to purchase a Mask AlignerBond Aligner for example, Suss-microtech MA-6BA-6 for development of next generation sensors. The funds from this grant were used to supplement some other funds received from AFOSR and AFRL to purchase a refurbished FC-150 with a solder reflow arm. Although the Pi, Prof. Krishna, worked hard to obtain as much functionality in the system, some of the options and accessories had to be traded off depending on the budget allocated. The system was installed in the PIs laboratory in May 2008 and has been functional. The first batch of successful focal plane arrays was bonded in November 2008. Since the equipment only has a solder reflow arm, the applied force is limited to only 4Newtons. This may be sufficient for some bonding experiments, but will need further training and modification to obtain a high yield focal plane array.