Self-Driving Experimental Platform BERTHA

BERTHA is a both an experimental platform for synthesising thin films of optoelectronic materials, but also a prototype self-driving laboratory, where a growing number of process steps are being automated and controlled by dedicated machine learning algorithms.

Material Types

BERTHA is designed to produce sulfur-based inorganic chalcogenides.
Examples include wide band gap solar cell materials like BaZrS3 and Cu2ZnSnS4. BERTHA is extremely flexible in terms of both process conditions and the types of elements that can be handled, allowing it to process a huge variety of candidate materials.

The Process

Thin film samples are produced by co-sputtering of the metallic elements in a 6-magnetron sputter chamber (A), followed by rapid heating in an adjoining furnace (C), to add sulfur from gas phase and crystallise the target material. The samples are transferred between these chambers via a glovebox (B) to avoid oxidation of the precursor metal elements. After formation is complete, the materials can be unloaded.