[jacob_d]

This sounds cool! Building Scientific Apparatus is a truly excellent resource.

Two questions: (1) Could you get away with an inert atmosphere? I'm not familiar with the pros and cons with respect to PVD. (2) It sounds like your vacuum setup will have a long cycle time from vent to pumpdown to operation. A load lock with a (turbomolecular?) pump adds quite a bit of expense. What's your approach to achieving high throughput?

[patwillson22]

You could, I've seen a couple of papers attempt that approach with rather poor results something like 8-10% percent. Though I'd say by the easiest approach to producing thin films cells involves basically using electroplating which achieves similar efficiency (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pip.417).

The cycle time is of course a highly dependent on the final design of chamber. There's no reason that Sorption and Getter Pumps combined with a ventri prestage can't preform to a degree that meets the design requirements.

However their performance is highly dependent on two things, the ability to reach bakeout quickly and the use of metal to metal seals instead of o-rings.

The actually difficult and expensive part of high vacuum engineering is figuring out how to engineer valves that can both withstand bakeout temperatures and make the tight leak free seals.

In this regard I plan to use what essential amounts to a plate valve with something called, a "powdered seal". This valve meets the requirements for the design in every aspect with it's only downside being that it is slow to change open to close. Though this downside will not reduce the overall throughput of the system as it is designed.