Advances in Vacuum Quality Measurement

Gerardo Brucker, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist, Granville-Phillips Instrumentation Div., Brooks Automation

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Dinner & Presentation Sponsored by

The Southern California Chapter of the AVS

Synopsis

This talk will discuss the significant improvements being made possible by innovations in electrostatic ion traps and autoresonant mass detection.

Relying simply on total pressure to monitor vacuum system readiness and integrity is both dangerous and inefficient. Mass spectrometers – often based on quadrupole filtering – can be used to provide identification of the chemical species that are present in the background. The recently developed autoresonant ion trap mass spectrometer (ART MS) provides potential improvements in vacuum quality control for many industrial applications. For example, the fast response time of ART MS enables tracking of rapidly changing vacuum conditions.The principles of operation of ART MS will be described and compared to quadrupole mass spectrometry legacy technology. The application of ART MS traps to real vacuum quality measurement problems will be explored.

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Our Speaker

Dr. Brucker is Chief Scientist at the Granville-Phillips Instrumentation Division of Brooks Automation Inc. located in Longmont, CO. Since 1992 he has been involved in the development and commercialization of scientific instruments including electrostatic ion traps, residual gas analyzers, high vacuum gauges, time-of-flight mass spectrometers, thermal analysis instruments and research-grade quartz crystal microbalance systems. Dr. Brucker is a short course instructor for AVS and a member-at-large of the Rocky Mountain Region AVS. He was previously responsible for the creation of the Vacuum and Analytical Products division at Stanford Research Systems, Inc.

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