🚨 *Addendum* 🚨 - I can't electronic my way out of a breadboard, so apologies for any basic EE mistakes! I just want to build the devices, not actually use them in circuits or whatever 😇 - In the PN/MSM animation, the electron/hole move in the wrong direction. Oops! Just pretend I know how to animate things correctly 😅 - Copper (I) == Cu2O and Copper (II) == CuO: This is very confusing! But it relates to the charge of the copper cation. Oxygen has a -2 charge, and in Cu2O there are two coppers per oxygen so they each carry a +1 charge hence (I) in the formula. CuO only has one copper per oxygen, so it carries a +2 charge and (II) in the formula. Very confusing to read out loud though 🫠

The average selling price of a CMOS Image Sensor is currently just above $3/sensor. The semiconductor industry is insane.

"DIY" and "semiconductor" are not words I normally see in the same sentence. tbh it is pretty awesome.

It's insane that there are *multiple* people on youtube doing DIY semiconductor fabrication. Not only that, but you're getting sponsors from industry instrument manufacturers, instead of mobile games and VPN providers

"I hope it was interesting...", really? This is just mindblowing... yet again

I just love the fact that a high tech corporation created a bleeding edge microscopy technology and said to themselves: "We need an influencer to promote this product." Whaddaya know there actually is such a guy, and I follow him on YT. The internet is beautiful sometimes.

Your hair cut speaks volumes about the complexity and frustration of this project :D

At an (amateur) astrophotography conference, the keynote talk was given by a "professional" astronomer (e.g., he got paid to do it, rather than spending his own money) who described a sensor and camera his research group built. It could do single photon detection AND also measure the wavelength of each photon's detection event. There is some solid state physics phenomenon whereby they would fabricate a feature on the chip they designed, such that when it interacted with a photon, it's effective capacitance changed by an amount proportional to the wavelength. So they would fabricate an array of LC pairs, organized as pixels on the wafer. The intention was that each pixel had a different, unique resonant frequency. Then they would pump the device with a broadband noise spectrum and then look at the resulting spectrum with an SDR receiver. They would observe a spectrum with a bunch of notches in it, corresponding to the resonant frequency of each pixel. When a photon interacted with one of the pixels, the notch in the spectrum would shift according to the wavelength. How fast you could run the FFT in the SDR software gave you the time-tagging precision of the detection event. He described the many iterations of fabricating his detector (with a 64x64 or maybe just 32x32 array). Some pixels would have the same resonant frequency as others, sort of aliasing them. Other pixels were, of course dead. Etc. I don't recall if the detector needed to be cryogenicly cooled in the camera body or not.. Many things were learned the hard way. I chatted with him after the fact and told him he had the most interesting job in the world, comprising: astrononmy, solid state physics, semiconduction fabrication, software defined radio and, of course, grant writing 🙂 At the end of all this, they did get to observe the pulsar in the Crab Nebula and time-tag those observations with simultaneous radio telescope observations to confirm the direction relationship which hadn't been done previously. What a long, long road to that result. Thanks for your video, it was really quite amazing to see all these fabrication steps actually done right before your eyes. And it gives me just a hint of the "art" beyond the "techniques" that goes on in modern semiconductor fabs.

Once every few years someone drops a new diy semiconductor vid and its the my favorite thing

This is absolutely insane to be able to do this DIY outside of an industrial setting. I've never seen anything like this attempted, amazing!

This honestly insane to me how you were able to just fab a working “Chip” essentially. Im IC Layout Engineer working for a major Semiconductor Company and the amount of things you got correct in terms of the process (especially the double layer deposition for stepwise etching) while just studying a nature paper is honestly impressive. Im guessing your problems with the misalignment at the end have something to do with your process, you need to do some test alignments and see how “offset” from the grid your Cupric Oxide Layer is from your aluminum layer. Then you can just design your “masks” around that offset. We usually have alignment marks for these sort of limitations in Manufacturing. We mostly design Power Management IC’s in our Design Center, so I can’t say for sure if your MSM array will work, but Im hoping to see more like this soon. Great Job!

he's got that medieval blacksmith look locked down, give him a leather apron and a hammer

Your ability to go past the part where Copper II is Cu and Copper I is Cu2 without snark is one of the many ways you're better than me.

Can't believe how much technology has evolved. Like there are millions of similar stuff in your phone cameras right now and don't even get me started on processors

I know your lab is significantly better than a lot of home labs out there, but it still gives me hope that one day we'll have DIY electronics from scratch. I love the thought of just plonking down a box in the corner and sending it a file and a few hours later a new chip.

man, what am I doing here

Absolutely incredible, even before demonstrating the sensor arrays, this is one of the most impressive single-person projects I've seen - that's a significant fraction of the technology required for a usable semiconductor process (and not even a huge node, 800nm is totally functional), just developed by one person! I can't wait to see where this goes :D (Yes, I know about Sam Zeelof's ICs, but unlike his approach, this video includes making the semiconductor as well - basically a SOI process, but not silicon)

Felt like a three minute video. It has genuinely been a while since I've been so immersed and attentive during a video, thank you.

Its SOO cool to see topics I studied in university applyed in practice - learning just the theory and doing it all on paper made it seem so bland and boring. But every time I see someone actually DO the theory, I am just stunned and miss this part of my life ... thanks for bringing it back to me

Most interesting ad I've seen on youtube

DIY semiconductors are my favorite type of videos. Want to say that your attempt at a full device was a great satisfactory ending for this work, and I'm really looking forward to you finishing it

Nice DIY photosensitive fuses. Now I can finally know if the lights were on when the fuse blew! 💡

In case you all wanted to know, here is a list of metal-to-oxide adhesion layers: Ti, Cr, Al, Ta, Mo, Nb, V, & Hf. I have used Ti, Cr, Ta, and Mo in my chips so far, for adhesion.

There was a thread on twitter where people in the industry were discussing how expensive oscilloscopes when turned on create unexpected voltage on the probes with some destroying the test object and how there are recall campaigns due to this issue.. Fascinating work as usual, mate!

Man this is the video that I've wanted to see you make for a while now. Very cool stuff, can't wait to see the stuff you do next with diy image sensors!

A+ work here! In high school I made circuit boards by using toner and etching with HCL, this is truly several steps up from that. One day I dream of having my own lab to be a mad scientist like you

Very cool , i can't belive what you achived in basically a home lab . Can't wait for the next video

I work at a major semiconductor fab on some cutting-edge lithography tooling. Intel High-NA team if you want to see the machines themselves. I love seeing semiconductor tech start to show up in the DIY space. I'm hoping we see somebody try to home-brew a 4004 in the near future.

Every time I see one of your videos I'm more and more impressed with your knowledge and skill with this kind of thing!

This is awesome in every way. To do this and film it at the same time is over the top. To DIY making something that small that precisely is remarkable. Filming it complicates it 100x. Thank You! For putting so much of your time into this, I appreciate the education, and its delivery made it enjoyable and easy.

This is the first video of yours I have watched/come across and I just want to commend the detail and patience in describing not just the processes and intent, but the tools in use, and dude... way to save 30 grand! You burned over that so quickly but seriously that alone was so impressive!

10:16 that fluid simulation must have taken a long time

The video idea: 😀 Materials required:😵😵😵

Absolutely amazing from one end to the other. The AFM-FTIR thing is super cool! I made a simple AFM in grad school, back in the early days, so interesting to see how many different directions that idea has gone.

Just came across this channel, and I must say I'm blown away by your knowledge and skills! I shall continue to watch your other videos now!

This video is awesome. Form the lighting to the rendered diagrams. And the subject is super cool

At this point your videos are my favourite thing to watch. Incredible effort, and surely an entertaining outcome. Thanks for all that you're doing!

Great video. And this is only the first stage. After that there is all the electronics to actually transfer the pixels, manage exposure time, HDR, serial communication with external IC, etc. Makes you realize the complexity of these devices that we take for granted.

Wow, you've come so far from your early videos of rebuilding a mill to this! I can't wait to see your 0.000016 mega pixel camera. On a completely different note, am I the only one who sees a Trojan Horse in the short circuit at 27:13 ? I guess it's a bit of a Rorschach test.

These videos really do a great job of inspiring me. These really help quantize intimidating topics like "DIY semiconductors". Amazing content, keep it up!

I can't believe you're able to do DIY semiconductor fab, AND do it while making a great video. Incredible stuff as always dude!

Oh man... this makes me hopeful for more home fabrication tools in the future. Really amazing work you've done here!

Really cool. Been really fascinated with how far copper semis can be taken since I saw keystones videos on a copper oxide solar panel.

Seeing how much work it takes to make such a tiny sensor really makes me appreciate just how much work goes in to modern computers. It's remarkable that we can make the chips we do.

This is AWESOME!!! 20/10, thanks for the great video! ALSO, thanks for introducing me to the PiFM technique! that is AMAZING!

As usual this channel is absolutely insane. Props yto your progress man

Man this is the first sponsor spot I have ever been *invested* in. I learnt a bunch of stuff and that tech is AMAZING. Kudos to them for being so open with how it all works and for sponsoring you to do this cool project. Only suggestion might be a little blurb on why this copper semiconductor photo sensor is special other than being fabricatable? Unless that is the prime attraction? I just saw "high performance" in the title of the paper was all.

I’m super impressed with your skills! This was an amazing project and beautiful presented!

Dude this work was insane, very good! Amazing attention to detail

This is so amazing!!! Subscribed to follow your efforts! Wishing you the best and success in building this sensor!

This nano stuff is fascinating. Even though these scales are so tiny that they escape my comprehension, it's so fascinating to look at. 27:55 now I wanna see a collab with the SloMoGuys to see what the hell is happing there at 100k FPS.

this is so cool man, I really enjoy that there's people doing this stuff

As usual, absolutely amazing and lots of relatable moments 😅 keep it up!

This is astounding. Thank you so much for sharing! ❤

Very cool! You're rapidly approaching Applied Science level of projects.

Very nice, good job. The alignment crosses at the end had me in tears.

wow - I can barely fathom most of the science in this, but I need to see where this project goes. Subscribed, and godspeed!

This is a really awsome project. I wish you all the success you need for this. :)

This was a bloody fascinating video, well done mate!

Always a pleasure when this channel has new content.

Absolutely stunning graphics and visuals. Great video!!

1:10 This may be a stupid question, but how can the semiconductor be naturally p-type? What is acting as an acceptor in undoped CuO? 3:40 If the copper - after solidstate dewetting - follows the underlying Silicon crystal structure, then what happened to your Oxide layer? 3:55 looks particularly interesting. What as the big blobs and why are they not merged with the little blobs? A thicker SiO2 layer may have helped as well. And last but not least, label your KLayout layers god damnit! So we can be even more hyped for the next project! KLayout also has a macro interface. If you want to process variations of the same layout (e.g. with different spacing) you (or I) can easily write you some code to do that. Hit me up it that would help.

this was so mind-boggling, it took me 3 sessions to go through the video. Amazing stuff there, sir

super cool! great work and I can imagine how much patience required to get this far. Lovely work on the animations too!

Thanks for an amazing video! You should have tours of your lab for people interested in taking some classes on how to do this. This is pretty awesome!

I love your diy probe station mover. Reminds me of grad school where we did a similar hack to move about entire microscope using some ball bearing drawer slides and an x-y manipulator

This video was uploaded 5 hours ago. To think about the precious time, I have wasted doing something else besides watching your video... Thank you for uploading something just in time to make this day an enjoyable one, after spending countless hours on a task that could have easily been automated. You literally saved my day!

those renders are so cool! amazing work

I've been trying to explain how silicon manufacturing works to my dad and this and your MEMS video will help him understand some of it, thanks. If you ever find the time or need to make a short'ish (10-20 minutes) video about it, please do so. You're explanations and graphics make it much easier to understand.

Please continue ! Cannot wait to see more of this

I thoroughly enjoyed your video! Even the sponsored bit was fun to watch! Great work! You earned yourself a new follower! It is great to see someone do science AND make a video out of it, and do both excellently!

Unreal ! I can't get enough of this stuff please keep up the great work but don't lose you sanity !.....cheers.

You, Sir, just earned a subscriber! Doing this as "a random youtuber" is NUTS! I thought "Breaking Taps" would be a machinist or automotive channel, but looking through your back catalogue tells a very different story. Can't wait for more!

Genuinely a brilliant, very interesting video. Thank you for the very hard work.

Such great content and so nicely produced. I was not at all interested before I started watching, and now I am fascinated and intrigued

Absolutely incredible! And gorgeous footage & graphics

Wow thank you. Learned a ton and appreciate your approach to setbacks.

Day 1 of learning how to make a computer from scratch if civilization falls

Your channel is amazing man, much respect.

If KZfaq had existed when I was in high school and if I'd watched this, I imagine I'd have decided to study whatever you did instead of my current profession.

Super cool to watch, great work!

Interesting. Love the timely paper reviews mixed in.

Great job, looking forward to the other results!

Awesome stuff, thank you!

Very interesting!! You could update your furnace by putting a modern PID temperature controller on it. They support multiple different kinds of thermocouples, support hysteresis settings. Not sure about the internals of what controls the filament in your furnace but people wire in PID controllers to their espresso machines with great results and even some data logging functions. Keep these awesome videos coming! I learn so much from them.

Your videos are very unique and you're highly skilled, thank you for such interesting content

Nice work! Love the alignment mark pic 🤣. I feel your pain brother. This work is teaching many valuable lessons. The most important: Never bet against silicon.

Very incredible DIY work, I really enjoyed it!

just WOW!! mindblowing 🤩 optoelectronics is just such a marvellous matter and you did it at "home". Kudos to you

I have a whole new perspective of digital sensors watching you build one pixel. My phone has 64 MP Sony sensor. Huge thanks my friend.. keep at it.

Having a background in material science, this channel hits close to home. Instant sub! Really cool to see this fabrication process on a small scale

Very nice work and video! Thank you so much!

Great content as always, but the real gem was introducing me to PhysicsInFlight. Finally understanding the underlying principles makes watching videos like yours so much more enjoyable.

I do wish more lab equipment manufacturers dld more things like this -- this is absolutely the right audience for those machines.

Amazing illustrations and amazing video ✔

Applied physics are the coolest. Thank you for sharing this increadible project with us and your time spend into producing this video.

Cool Project! Love your work...

Absolutely amazing work! I am speechless.

I am amazed at the quality and effort behind the video, pure eye candy animations and the sponsor is actually participating in the project with their amazing technology. Since it's so sensitive, does it run in a vacuum or just clean air? The box doesn't look like a vacuum chamber.

Awesome learning experience! Thanks for the video!