Agent-authored deposition recipes for X-ray multilayer mirrors: schema-bound LLM control of a magnetron sputtering system with reflectivity-verified outcomes
Abstract
Periodic multilayer mirrors for X-rays require a layer period controlled to about 0.1 nm, set by deposition rates held in the laboratory's own notebook. A supervising model session gave a large language model agent a target multilayer specification and calibration constants derived from a laboratory archive. The agent authored recipes in the magnetron sputtering system's native recipe language and submitted them through a Model Context Protocol bridge of 17 tools in three tiers, with enforcement in the control application. The target was a 30-bilayer Ru/C multilayer with a period of 6.85 nm, a pair chosen because each period is fitted as two layers. The agent could read and write only its own working project, so it could alter neither the calibration record nor the measurements that scored it. We scored mirrors by X-ray reflectivity and fixed the 3% acceptance threshold on relative period difference before deposition. Across four scored depositions, the relative period difference fell from 20% on the calibration as given to 2.26% after one measured-feedback iteration and 0.79% after a second. We identified sixteen failure modes of the agent-facing interface. The result is bounded to the period, pair, and chamber observed.
Related
- Optical Emission Spectroscopy Applied to Plasma Magnetron Sputtering Metallic Deposition Onto Liquid at Low Pressure
- Amorphous insulating MoSx films deposited by magnetron sputtering as a low-index optical coating
- A transfer-rod-mounted rotatable sample holder enabling a compact modular vacuum system for ion-beam milling, oblique magnetron sputtering, and co-sputtering
- Effect of independent parameters on nanoparticle sizes in magnetron-sputtering inert-gas condensation
- FHiVI2: A Fast High-Voltage approach for Ionisation Improvement in the context of plasma-assisted magnetron sputtering
BibTeX
@misc{penkov2026agentauthored,
title = {{Agent-authored deposition recipes for X-ray multilayer mirrors: schema-bound LLM control of a magnetron sputtering system with reflectivity-verified outcomes}},
author = {Oleksiy V. Penkov and Haoyu Fu and Yueying Zhan and Pengyuan Wu and Jiong Jin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.12796},
eprint = {2609.12796},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.12796},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Agent-authored deposition recipes for X-ray multilayer mirrors: schema-bound LLM control of a magnetron sputtering system with reflectivity-verified outcomes
AU - Oleksiy V. Penkov
AU - Haoyu Fu
AU - Yueying Zhan
AU - Pengyuan Wu
AU - Jiong Jin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.12796
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.12796
AB - Periodic multilayer mirrors for X-rays require a layer period controlled to about 0.1 nm, set by deposition rates held in the laboratory's own notebook. A supervising model session gave a large language model agent a target multilayer specification and calibration constants derived from a laboratory archive. The agent authored recipes in the magnetron sputtering system's native recipe language and submitted them through a Model Context Protocol bridge of 17 tools in three tiers, with enforcement in the control application. The target was a 30-bilayer Ru/C multilayer with a period of 6.85 nm, a pair chosen because each period is fitted as two layers. The agent could read and write only its own working project, so it could alter neither the calibration record nor the measurements that scored it. We scored mirrors by X-ray reflectivity and fixed the 3% acceptance threshold on relative period difference before deposition. Across four scored depositions, the relative period difference fell from 20% on the calibration as given to 2.26% after one measured-feedback iteration and 0.79% after a second. We identified sixteen failure modes of the agent-facing interface. The result is bounded to the period, pair, and chamber observed.
ER -