Vacuum organizations, online books and journals

• The American Vacuum Society (AVS) site contains many educational resources; these include video courses on vacuum materials.
• The AVS Monograph and AVS Classics series of texts includes several well-respected titles.
• The Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) as Part A and Part B.
• Vacuum Solutions was an Institute of Physics journal, which could be accessed online. That's the web for you, easy come, easy go. IoP advise using their buyers guide instead.
• Semiconductor International is a trade magazine for semiconductor information, which does include issues involving vacuum systems. But now the 'improved' digital delivery is fiendishly slow, and direct page links don't work. Have these people forgotten why the web works, or that some people still use phone lines?

Large-scale vacuum systems

• You may be interested in details of the vacuum system of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. This shows the scale of effort required for the design, construction and maintenance of a large and complex system. Unfortunately, the site is being redesigned, and is pesently nowhere near as useful as an example for students. Looks like the concerns of security have become uppermost.
• Some papers, session 8C, and other material on the CERN vacuum system have been made available in the context of conference proceedings.
• Synchrotron radiation sources, such as SRS Daresbury in the UK, have specific vacuum needs and support groups (Click on Support Groups, or go direct to the Vacuum Support home page). A full list of SR Laboratories is available here on my site.

Materials for use in vacuum

• Start with Assda, the Australian Stainless Steel Development Association, for an explanation of the widespread uses and composition of 304 stainless steel.
• The composition of the machinable ceramic Macor can be found on the International Ceramic Engineering site. Mycalex is a glass-mica composite whose properties can be found at the Mykroy-Mycalex site. Both materials are machined by several companies, including the Mica-Tron Products Corporation.
• The properties of various forms of Kapton are set out on the Kapton-Dupont site.
• For wire insulation, see the NASA guide to the properties of Kapton, Teflon and related plastics and their outgassing properties in space. This is part of the materials selection effort at the Goddard Space Fight Center.
• Some comments which overlap with those in my book, Appendix G, on Vacuum Materials are made on a website in Alberta, in a teaching context, but these should not be taken literally for UHV applications. This page is just one page of Roy Schmaus's site devoted to Vacuum Technology.

Commercial equipment suppliers

• Varian is a well-known supplier of vacuum products.
• Vacuum Generators is now called Thermo Vacuum Generators; it sells pumps, traps, fittings, gaskets and many other vacuum-related items and systems.
• Helix Technology now has a simpler website from a couple of years ago, when it had a beautifully designed, but rather slow home page (yes, KISS, this is good). The firm sells pumps and tools for measurment and control, amongst other things. This firm also markets Cryopumps originally sold under the CTI-Cryogenics® label.
• There are many other commercial suppliers in this field, who advertize in journals, sponsor conferences and exhibit at trade shows. Good luck, guys!

General measurement, standards information and other Links

• They have UHV pressure standards at the NPL in Teddington, near London, UK.
• Pressure, and other measurements, should be traceable to the standards maintained at NIST. If you want to find out more about this process, do a Google Search on the topic.
• It's quicker that way, and more up to date. Last year I found a page on Thermodynamic quantities A: Pressure Measurements for my surfing pains, but, as you can see, it isn't there now...
• But this year, using the search on "pressure measurement" I instantly found MKS Instruments, who have a remarkable range of high precision pressure and flow control equipment.