Carbon (graphite) crucibles work well for both Al and Au.
Both are very easy to melt--with both metals, the pellets will
combine into a single ball of metal--so make sure you use
enough source material so that the metal doesn't melt together
into a ball that is smaller than your crucible!  We do only
manual ramping of current.  If your system allows manual
operation, just practice with your shutter open and raise the
current slowly.  Both Al and Au melt easily but it can be
tricky to tell (just by looking at it) weather or not there is
evaporation.

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:02:24 -0500
>From: "Andrew Xiang" 
>Subject: [mems-talk] EBEAM guideline for Al Au evaporation
>To: "General MEMS discussion" 
>
>We just got the EBEAM system with 6 pockets, 10KV, 15KW.
>
>For Al and Au (separate) thin film deposition, does anyone
have some
>guideline for me to follow?
>things like what kind of crucible liner? ramp up/down time?
How do you tell
>the Al pellets have melted?
>How fast can you ramp up for fast evapoaration?