Vacuum Equipment: Components and Systems

This 12-page lab guide, created by the Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge Support (NACK) Center at Pennsylvania State University, is for a 2-part laboratory activity that reinforces "classroom theory of vacuum systems with the hands-on creation of two types of vacuum systems." During the first part of the lab, students will identify and assemble the components of a low vacuum system. In part two, they will "change the low vacuum system into a high vacuum system, achieve a high vacuum state and manipulate the pressure of the system with a mass flow controller." Included in the lab guide is background information vacuum systems and their uses in nanofabrication processes, a lab procedure, step-by-step instructions with images of vacuum system components, and post-lab student questions for both parts of the lab.