[3dem] plasma cleaner

Wed Jan 25 10:07:03 PST 2023

Dear Ed and community,

We have a Pelco EasiGlow and a Quorum/EMS Glo-Qube. I use both interchangeably and notice no differences between them. When we got the Glo-Qube, we swapped the oil pump for a roughing pump and one of my colleagues changed the presets for requested vacuum, so that it would work with the roughing pump. I've never had any issues with the Glo-Qube, and have never had to replace a part in the 6-7yrs it's been in our lab. It has inlets for gas, and a second/separate chamber where you can add materials to functionalize grids or the surface of interest. We have both mat sci and bio folks who use it and like it. And every user can save the settings they want. I don't think there's an upper limit to the amount of recipes or presets you can save (we have over 10 programs, but mostly use 1-2, including one to clean AFM targets/cantilevers).

For the EasiGlow, I replace the oil and oil-mist filter when needed. You can tell because it'll stop glowing. It also has at least 1 inlet for an external gas. We have ours hooked to argon. But mostly operate it at ambient air/gas. You can save up to 4 recipes/programs, but it's not too difficult to change things when/as needed. Ted Pella's service and help is top-notch.

I haven't had any experience with them, but in Ithaca there's Harrick Plasma. The Nanoscale Facility here uses them and their users are pretty happy, as it allows them to change current manually (like the Emitech cleaners we used to use at Vandy ... I adored those). https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://harrickplasma.com__;!!Mih3wA!GgwI3QfoWN70-ZEHkmH8xZM9zA8amodWGRbMdsB6Nh3fmQmYpnbE05lS2oEDqWuhORnYT3QnKRxMhQFgsUbC$ 

My three cents,

Mariena
________________________________
From: 3dem <3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Patricia Grob PhD <pgrob at berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2023 12:51 PM
To: Egelman, Edward H (ehe2n) <egelman at virginia.edu>
Cc: 3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [3dem] plasma cleaner

Hello Ed,

We got a Tergeo EM (PIE Scientific) plasma cleaner when our Solarus went down 4 or 5 years ago and we have been very happy with it. It is more affordable and it has been running without fail or repairs ever since.

Patricia

_________________________________
Patricia Grob, Ph.D.
Research Specialist
Nogales Lab
HHMI at UC Berkeley
Molecular & Cell Biology Department / QB3,
Stanley Hall #742
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3220
Phone: (510)666-3335 Fax: (510)666-3336
E.M. suite B307: (510)666-3339
URL: cryoem.berkeley.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://cryoem.berkeley.edu__;!!Mih3wA!C7DcZr7wzSTHKwpZuUfXknBo_VK608jMkHM0LJNxPRO0sFyRNtyFeiQhOVGG_ZYiKbC1QD2tjWmplJUuHY_C$>
Email: pgrob at berkeley.edu<mailto:pgrob at berkeley.edu>

On Jan 24, 2023, at 2:43 PM, Christopher Winkler <microwink at gmail.com<mailto:microwink at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hey Ed,

We went through a similar cost benefit analysis of plasma cleaners after our Solarus RF board failed. We went with one of the more basic plasma cleaners partly due to budget, partly due to the simplicity of operation of the more basic units, and partly due to the simplicity of design of the basic units. As you point out, the cost of a "simple" cleaner is 1/4 to 1/3 of the Solarus II. The Solarus was pretty easy to operate and the ability to save recipes is nice, but the more basic plasma cleaners are even simpler--you basically toggle a switch to start or stop the cleaner. There is no ability to save a recipe on our cleaner but we only had a few saved recipes on our Solarus that were routinely used. It's not hard to adjust time and power on the basic units. Most importantly for me, the more basic cleaners forego the TMP for a basic dry scroll pump so there are no diaphragm pumps to rebuild or turbo oil bearings to swap, and there's no painful teardown of the system to access the vacuum systems. The poorer vacuum is fully sufficient to generate a good quality plasma and I've not really seen much of a difference in cleaning performance--the new "simple" model does a good job of cleaning and removing hydrocarbon contamination (we don't use it for glow discharging or treating grid surfaces, so I can't comment on that).

A downside of the basic cleaner is that it only uses one process gas at a time, so you cannot switch between argon and oxygen mixtures or hydrogen like the Solarus. This is not a problem for our application but it's something to consider.

Happy to discuss specifics off of the listserv,
Chris

On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 5:17 PM Egelman, Edward H (ehe2n) <egelman at virginia.edu<mailto:egelman at virginia.edu>> wrote:

We have a Gatan Solarus that is failing, and are thinking about replacements. The newer Solarus II is from 5-10 times more expensive than the simplest plasma cleaners out there. Does anyone have any comparisons to justify this very high price tag?

Thanks,

Ed

Edward Egelman

Harrison Distinguished Professor,

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics

University of Virginia

phone: 434-924-8210

fax: 434-924-5069

egelman at virginia.edu<mailto:egelman at virginia.edu>

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://egelmanlab.org/__;!!Mih3wA!GgwI3QfoWN70-ZEHkmH8xZM9zA8amodWGRbMdsB6Nh3fmQmYpnbE05lS2oEDqWuhORnYT3QnKRxMhRWFeekm$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://egelmanlab.org/__;!!Mih3wA!E1FbZMjPylp2E_W95tkmjXBa_SrdglqlKHumjIYttQDrp5j2mFygiYldlXjLxNN29KbT4EBRw_E2__08r2FUsiA$>

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