Actors of Vacuum

Who runs ultra-high vacuum, and why it is hard.

A field map of the Bay Area: quantum, electron sources, accelerators. Each entry: vacuum level, power, voltage, product, application, customer. Sourced.

  1. Public / Research Atom Computing The vacuum chamber IS the core of the system; scaling toward ~100k atoms per chamber demands growing vacuum and cleanliness mastery. Many PhDs, few dedicated vacuum engineers. Berkeley is next door. View →
  2. Industrial CPI / Eimac (heritage) The historical lineage of Bay Area industrial vacuum. Same technology family as the Thales tubes. Useful as context anchor. View →
  3. Industrial eBeam, Inc. Core tube/source territory. A small shop where sharp external expertise carries high unit value. View →
  4. Industrial HeatWave Labs Closest fit to an industrial electron-tube background: X-ray sources, electron tubes, UHV, cathode thermomechanics and beam optics. A narrow field with few competitors worldwide. View →
  5. Accelerators Lawrence Berkeley Lab / ALS Synchrotron terrain, the heart of beamline vacuum. Direct neighbor. View →
  6. Accelerators Lawrence Livermore Lab / NIF Big-science vacuum next door; laser-matter-plasma interaction. View →
  7. Public / Research PsiQuantum Assembles its prototype in a former semiconductor fab in Milpitas, next to SLAC. Central challenges are materials, cryogenics, vacuum integration. Heavily funded, young, no lab vacuum tradition. Ideal ground for UHV + materials + cryo expertise. View →
  8. Public / Research Rigetti Computing Cryo + vacuum + in-house fabrication coupling. Vacuum and cryo integration at very low temperature is classic synchrotron territory. View →
  9. Accelerators SLAC / LCLS-II A reference point for the depth of the terrain: pulsed HV, UHV/XHV, cryo, copper outgassing. The benchmark, not a prospect. View →