{ "dataset": "frontier", "schemaVersion": 2, "version": "2026-09-07", "updated": "2026-09-07", "license": "CC BY 4.0", "attribution": "Mean Free Path, Pierre F. Ribault", "canonical": "https://pierreribault.com/data/frontier.json", "data": { "maturityLabels": { "industrialized": "Industrialized", "active": "Active, empirical", "open": "Open", "desert": "Desert", "marginal": "Marginal" }, "maturityMeanings": { "industrialized": "Solved well enough to ship at scale. The recipes hold.", "active": "Worked every day, mastered by craft, still without a predictive model.", "open": "Recognized and unsolved. People are on it.", "desert": "Real problem, near-empty field. Almost nobody is on it in the open.", "marginal": "Little at stake for this sector. The thin cell is the information." }, "sectorReading": { "semiconductor-equipment": "supply", "semiconductor-fabs": "mission", "fusion-private": "mission", "big-science": "mission", "quantum": "mission", "vacuum-electronics": "hybrid", "vacuum-supply": "supply", "space-test": "mission" }, "rows": [ { "id": "stimulated-desorption", "order": 1, "title": "Stimulated desorption", "physics": "Photons, electrons and ions knock gas off the walls. The machine makes its own pressure.", "frontier": "Conditioning time is still measured, never predicted. Cryogenic desorption data is scarce." }, { "id": "hydrogen", "order": 2, "title": "Hydrogen & isotopes", "physics": "Hydrogen lives inside the metal, not on it. It outgasses forever, permeates, embrittles.", "frontier": "One enemy in four uniforms: Q-disease, tritium inventory, trap lifetimes, mirror blistering." }, { "id": "functional-surfaces", "order": 3, "title": "Functional surfaces", "physics": "Surfaces that pump, protect or stay quiet: NEG films, coatings, sealed getters.", "frontier": "Decades of getter craft in the oldest sector, needed verbatim by the youngest." }, { "id": "high-voltage", "order": 4, "title": "High voltage & conditioning", "physics": "Vacuum insulates until one microscopic point gives way. Surfaces are taught to hold.", "frontier": "Seventy years of ritual, five sector vocabularies, zero predictive model. The theory nobody wrote." }, { "id": "particles", "order": 5, "title": "Particles & contamination", "physics": "One particle seeds an arc, kills a die, blinds an optic. Molecular films do it slower.", "frontier": "In-situ particle detection under vacuum barely exists. Component cleanliness has no standard." }, { "id": "cryo-vacuum", "order": 6, "title": "Cryo-vacuum", "physics": "Cold surfaces pump everything and saturate. The vacuum and the cryogenics become one system.", "frontier": "Continuous tritium cryopumping, million-qubit cryoplants, cryo-etch physics: all open at once." }, { "id": "joints", "order": 7, "title": "Joints & hermeticity", "physics": "Every boundary leaks somewhere: brazes, welds, windows, feedthroughs, bonded wafers.", "frontier": "Hermeticity at new extremes: activated environments, mK stages, thousand-line feedthroughs." }, { "id": "metrology", "order": 8, "title": "In-situ metrology & data", "physics": "You run what you can measure. Gauges drift, RGAs disagree, fleets go unqualified.", "frontier": "The value migrated to the data layer above the hardware, and the layer barely exists." }, { "id": "interfaces", "order": 9, "title": "Material interfaces", "physics": "The last nanometer decides: oxides, adsorbates, two-level systems, work functions.", "frontier": "Recipes that work without mechanisms: SRF doping, TLS losses, cathode chemistry." }, { "id": "plasma-surface", "order": 10, "title": "Plasma-surface", "physics": "The plasma rewrites the wall and the wall feeds back the plasma.", "frontier": "Walls that survive and stay clean at once. Chambers that stop lying to their own tests." }, { "id": "simulation-data", "order": 11, "title": "Simulation & data", "physics": "Molecular flow codes, outgassing tables, digital twins: the models behind the machines.", "frontier": "Designs of 2026 still run on outgassing tables from the 1970s, and this site now republishes one of them, Elsey 1975, with the pumping time each number was read at. That is a start on one row of one sector, not the open database." }, { "id": "scale", "order": 12, "title": "Scale", "physics": "From one artisan chamber to kilometers, fleets and constellations.", "frontier": "Vacuum as a production line: FCC kilometers, million-qubit plants, constellation-rate test." } ], "cells": [ { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "EUV optics contamination under intense photon flux, resist outgassing inside the scanner, in-situ cleaning without downtime.", "actors": [ "ASML", "Lasertec" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Wafer outgassing between vacuum steps and queue-time effects on process repeatability.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Samsung Semiconductor", "Intel" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Ion-stimulated desorption in neutral beam lines and wall gas release under plasma pulses.", "actors": [ "TAE Technologies", "Helion Energy" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Photon-stimulated desorption and electron cloud in rings, heavy-ion induced desorption instabilities, cryogenic desorption data for future collider beam screens. Conditioning models remain empirical.", "actors": [ "CERN", "GSI / FAIR", "FRIB", "SLAC" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Anomalous heating of ion traps tied to surface adsorbates. The same photodesorption is used on purpose to load atom traps.", "actors": [ "IonQ", "Quantinuum", "QuEra" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Gas bursts desorbed under electron bombardment trigger internal arcs. Gas evolution over the sealed life of the device.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "Varex Imaging", "Canon ETD" ] }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "desert", "challenge": "Product gap: standardized, machine-readable desorption yield data for commercial materials. Everyone measures, nobody shares.", "actors": [ "Kurt J. Lesker", "VACOM", "MKS Instruments" ], "ref": "[A] O. Malyshev, Vacuum in Particle Accelerators (Wiley, 2019): compiled ESD/PSD yields, scatter across labs" }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Solar-UV stimulated outgassing during thermal vacuum cycles. The larger contamination story lives in the particles row.", "actors": [ "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Massive hydrogen flows in EUV sources, hydrogen blistering of Mo/Si multilayer mirrors, tin hydride transport.", "actors": [ "ASML" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Hydrogen anneals and epitaxial ambients. Managed within process windows.", "actors": [ "Intel", "TSMC" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "The tritium fuel cycle: permeation barriers at reactor scale, regulatory tritium inventory, tritium-compatible pumps, direct internal recycling.", "actors": [ "Kyoto Fusioneering", "Commonwealth Fusion", "Tokamak Energy" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Hydrogen as the dominant residual gas of every baked system. In niobium it becomes Q-disease: the degassing recipes hold, the mechanisms are still argued.", "actors": [ "Jefferson Lab", "Fermilab", "DESY", "SLAC" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Atom trap lifetimes limited by residual hydrogen collisions in systems that cannot be baked. Hydrogen films on cryogenic electrodes.", "actors": [ "Atom Computing", "QuEra", "Infleqtion" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Dispenser cathode hydrogen chemistry and the internal atmosphere of a tube over fifteen sealed years.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "L3Harris EDD", "Canon ETD" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Product gap: hydrogen pumping at very low flux, calibrated outgassing measurement below 1e-13 mbar·L/s/cm², reference standards.", "actors": [ "SAES Getters", "INFICON", "Pfeiffer Vacuum" ] }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Little at stake. Hydrogen is not the contaminant space test wakes up for.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Chamber-interior coatings that resist corrosive plasma and stay low-particle at the same time. The double criterion is the challenge.", "actors": [ "Applied Materials", "Lam Research", "Tokyo Electron" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Consumer of the equipment cell. The coatings arrive with the tool.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Permeation barriers as functional coatings at reactor scale.", "actors": [ "Kyoto Fusioneering", "Renaissance Fusion" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Thin-film NEG is the ring standard. Left open: lower activation temperature, endurance over reactivation cycles, conditioning of fully coated narrow chambers.", "actors": [ "CERN", "MAX IV / ESS", "HEPS" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Passive pumping for sealed miniature chambers that must hold UHV for years without maintenance. Getter sizing over a decade.", "actors": [ "Infleqtion", "Atom Computing" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "industrialized", "challenge": "The oldest getter craft in the landscape: seventy years of sealed tubes. Current edge: getter capacity against miniaturization, endurance at temperature.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "Varex Imaging", "Hamamatsu" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The supply side of the row. Remaining gap: getters that activate without a heavy bake, NEG for high gas loads.", "actors": [ "SAES Getters" ] }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Molecular adsorbers placed in chambers and on orbit to capture contamination. Placement strategy is still a craft.", "actors": [ "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator", "ESA ESTEC Test Centre" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "High voltage stability of e-beam columns in mask writing and inspection, implanter terminals, electrostatic chuck arcing. Chuck reliability is fab uptime.", "actors": [ "NuFlare", "Axcelis", "Hitachi High-Tech" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Consumer of the equipment cell.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Megavolt-class neutral beam grids, high voltage feedthroughs in vacuum, RF antennas arcing near plasma. The pulsed-power family lives in this cell.", "actors": [ "TAE Technologies", "Helion Energy", "Zap Energy", "Avalanche Energy" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "RF breakdown in hundred-megavolt-per-meter structures, field emission in superconducting cavities, DC photoguns, extreme pulsed power. Conditioning tracked, not predicted.", "actors": [ "CERN", "SLAC", "Sandia Z" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Trap voltages are modest. A near-empty cell, and honestly so.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The core craft of the sealed tube. Conditioning works, no model predicts it, and the best knowledge sits unpublished in private procedures. Multipacting of RF windows; gyrotrons feed the fusion column.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "Thales (Velizy)", "CPI" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Product gap: feedthroughs and insulators qualified at megavolt class for neutral beams and pulsed power. Reliable cold-cathode gauge ignition.", "actors": [ "Allectra", "VACOM", "Kurt J. Lesker" ] }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Multipaction in RF payloads, tested to ECSS standards. Arcs on high voltage buses and electric propulsion, the Paschen minimum crossed on every ascent. Same physics as multipacting, different spelling.", "actors": [ "ESA ESTEC Test Centre", "Thales Alenia Space" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Sub-10 nm particle detection in vacuum and in situ, electrostatic particle transport inside tools, tin debris at the EUV source.", "actors": [ "KLA", "ASML", "Applied Materials" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Defectivity as religion, airborne molecular contamination in the FOUPs. A running battle at scale.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Samsung Semiconductor", "SK hynix" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Tritiated dust inventories, diagnostic mirror contamination, target chamber debris and final optics on the inertial side.", "actors": [ "Xcimer Energy", "Marvel Fusion", "First Light Fusion" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Field emission in superconducting cavities seeded by particulates: the whole cleanroom discipline of cryomodules follows from it. In-situ particulate detection in beamlines barely exists.", "actors": [ "SLAC", "Fermilab", "LLNL NIF" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Trap surfaces charged by particulates, and no dedicated standard for the cleanroom-to-cryostat chain of custody.", "actors": [ "IonQ", "Quantinuum" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Internal cleanliness of sealed devices. The particle is the arc trigger; this cell holds hands with the high voltage row.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "Comet / YXLON" ] }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "desert", "challenge": "Cleanliness level standards exist, IEST and the SEMI F series for gas delivery. What has no standard is the particle generation of vacuum components in operation: valves, bellows, pumps. Every buyer qualifies alone.", "actors": [ "VAT Group", "Kurt J. Lesker", "Edwards Vacuum" ], "sources": [ { "label": "IEST-STD-CC1246 precision cleanliness levels, overview", "url": "https://astropak.com/precision-cleaning-standards/" }, { "label": "CERN vacuum acceptance tests for accelerator equipment (in-house spec)", "url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.10367" }, { "label": "VAT Ultra Clean Vacuum particle management program", "url": "https://www.vatgroup.com/news/product-news/ultra-clean-vacuum-vat-perfects-particle-management" } ], "ref": "[B] SEMI F-series standards (gas delivery cleanliness); no in-operation particle generation counterpart exists" }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The core craft of thermal vacuum: contamination budgets, outgassing certification on an aging ASTM E595, QCMs and witness plates. Missing: predictive chamber-to-orbit transport models.", "actors": [ "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator", "ESA ESTEC Test Centre", "Centre Spatial de Liege" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Cryopump regeneration scheduling as an uptime variable, and cryogenic etch bringing cryo physics into the process itself.", "actors": [ "Lam Research", "Tokyo Electron", "Axcelis" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Cryogenic etch for high aspect ratio 3D NAND stacks. The physics is still empirical and the window is now.", "actors": [ "SK hynix", "Samsung Semiconductor", "Kioxia", "YMTC" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Batch cryopump regeneration is incompatible with a continuous power plant. Continuous tritium pumping is an unsolved plant problem. HTS magnet cryostats, and one levitated superconducting magnet with no contact at all.", "actors": [ "Kyoto Fusioneering", "Commonwealth Fusion", "OpenStar Technologies" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Beam screens, saturating cryopumping surfaces, condensed film instabilities at 2 K and 20 K. The daily life of a cryomodule.", "actors": [ "CERN", "Fermilab", "SLAC" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Dilution refrigerators scaled toward a million qubits: wiring heat loads, pulse tube vibration, the helium economy. One platform runs on a superfluid helium film.", "actors": [ "IBM Quantum", "Google Quantum AI", "PsiQuantum", "EeroQ" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "A near-empty cell, and honestly so.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The supply side of quantum and fusion cryogenics. Gap: megawatt-scale industrial cryoplants, standardized vacuum-cryo interfaces, fleet thermometry.", "actors": [ "Bluefors", "Sumitomo SHI Cryogenics", "Linde Kryotechnik", "Air Liquide adv tech" ] }, { "row": "cryo-vacuum", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Twenty-kelvin helium shrouds in giant chambers, the energy cost of large cryogenic thermal vacuum, cryopumping speed in huge volumes.", "actors": [ "NASA Johnson Chamber A", "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator", "RAL Space National Satellite Test Facility" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Transfer valves and load locks at millions of cycles without generating particles. Hybrid wafer bonding: vacuum as the assembly tool, interface voids as the killer defect.", "actors": [ "EV Group", "SUSS MicroTec" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Stacked sensors and copper-to-copper hybrid bonding as a production cell.", "actors": [ "Sony Semiconductor", "TSMC" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Reactor-scale leak-tightness: lip welds, remotely handled flanges, diagnostic windows under neutron flux, rewelding in activated environments.", "actors": [ "Proxima Fusion", "Thea Energy", "Commonwealth Fusion" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Coupler and klystron RF windows as a classic linac failure mode, beam windows, bimetal transitions.", "actors": [ "CERN", "Jefferson Lab", "KEK" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Thousands of hermetic cryogenic lines per fridge, coax and fiber, indium seals, optical windows into the cold.", "actors": [ "IBM Quantum", "PsiQuantum" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "industrialized", "challenge": "Metal-ceramic brazing as a mastered craft. Its edges are alive: wetting defects, thermal cycling fatigue, the economics of gold-free brazes.", "actors": [ "Kyocera", "Thales (Thonon)", "Canon ETD" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Beyond the ConFlat: standards for cryogenic, high voltage and low-particulate service. The supply chain of OFE copper gaskets.", "actors": [ "VACOM", "Kurt J. Lesker", "MDC Precision", "Allectra" ] }, { "row": "joints", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Very large diameter doors and flanges, solar simulation windows, harness feedthroughs by the hundreds of channels, fast payload integration.", "actors": [ "Angelantoni Test Technologies", "Dynavac", "IABG Space Centre" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Disentangling sensor drift from process drift. Chamber matching as a discipline.", "actors": [ "KLA", "Onto Innovation", "Applied Materials" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Predictive monitoring of the vacuum park as an uptime lever, chamber matching across entire fleets.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Intel", "Micron" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Neutron-hard gauges, tritium-compatible residual gas analysis, partial pressures measured under magnetic field and radiation. The reactor instrumentation gap is real and named.", "actors": [ "Kyoto Fusioneering", "Tokamak Energy" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "RGA fleets with no shared calibration, gauge drift, no common qualification metric across machines.", "actors": [ "SLAC", "CERN", "DESY" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "desert", "challenge": "The blind cryostat: no vacuum diagnostic exists at the millikelvin stage, machines run unmeasured. In the other direction, cold-atom gauges make the atom the primary pressure standard.", "actors": [ "Infleqtion", "IonQ", "Atom Computing" ], "ref": "[A] NIST Cold Atom Vacuum Standard (CAVS) program" }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "No gauge inside a sealed tube. Internal pressure is inferred from behavior, dark current as a proxy, over the life of the product.", "actors": [ "Thales (Thonon)", "Varex Imaging" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Product gap: self-calibrating or calibration-free gauges, optical pressure standards to replace ionization gauges, natively data-ready instruments.", "actors": [ "INFICON", "MKS Instruments" ] }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Every center has its own QCM and witness practice. No cross-facility, real-time traceability of contamination flux.", "actors": [ "ESA ESTEC Test Centre", "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator", "Intespace" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Interfaces preserved under vacuum between tools: the vacuum cluster as the answer to atomically clean surfaces.", "actors": [ "Applied Materials", "ASM International", "Veeco" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Interface traps and losses in gate-all-around transistors.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Samsung Semiconductor", "Intel", "Rapidus" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Surface morphology under plasma lives in the plasma-surface row.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "The superconducting RF surface: nitrogen doping, mid-temperature bakes, oxide structure against quality factor. Recipes that work without a consensus mechanism. Nb3Sn films.", "actors": [ "Fermilab", "Jefferson Lab", "DESY", "KEK" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Two-level-system losses at substrate-air and metal-substrate interfaces, surface spins, the tantalum turn. The microscopic origin is still unresolved.", "actors": [ "Google Quantum AI", "IBM Quantum", "Rigetti", "IQM" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Dispenser cathode surface chemistry, work function stability, photocathode quantum efficiency lifetimes.", "actors": [ "Hamamatsu", "Photonis / Exosens", "L3Harris EDD" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Product gap: a quantified correlation from surface finish to outgassing rate, and certified finishes to match.", "actors": [ "VACOM", "Kurt J. Lesker" ] }, { "row": "interfaces", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Atomic oxygen erosion in low orbit, UV darkening, and correlating ground exposure to on-orbit surface aging.", "actors": [ "NASA Goddard Space Environment Simulator", "ESA ESTEC Test Centre" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The entire etch and deposition trade. Atomic-precision etch, damage to underlayers, chamber wall conditioning drift: the first-wafer effect is a wall conditioning, same physics as a tokamak boronization.", "actors": [ "Lam Research", "Applied Materials", "Tokyo Electron", "AMEC" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Direct consumer of the equipment cell, plus SiC and GaN growth on the power side.", "actors": [ "Infineon", "STMicroelectronics", "onsemi" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Erosion and redeposition, tritium codeposition, transient heat loads, liquid metal walls. A first wall that survives the plasma and retains little fuel, simultaneously.", "actors": [ "Commonwealth Fusion", "Renaissance Fusion", "General Fusion", "Zap Energy" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Negative hydrogen ion sources and their cesiation, source longevity, in-situ plasma processing of superconducting cavities.", "actors": [ "SNS / Oak Ridge", "J-PARC" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "A thin cell, and honestly so.", "actors": [] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Cathode erosion in crossed-field devices. Magnetrons and gyrotrons: this column builds the guns that heat fusion plasmas.", "actors": [ "CPI", "Thales (Velizy)", "NEC Microwave" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "Pumps that swallow corrosive, condensable and dusty processes. Dry pump lifetime in hard CVD, plasma-resistant components.", "actors": [ "Edwards Vacuum", "Ebara", "ULVAC" ] }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Facility effects in electric propulsion testing: the chamber backsputters onto the thruster and alters its own life test. A field now actively worked, a dedicated NASA institute and a 2024 review, and still unsolved at the core: extrapolating ground results to space, with standards under construction.", "actors": [ "SpaceX Starlink", "Rocket Lab", "ESA ESTEC Test Centre" ], "sources": [ { "label": "Foster & Topham, Phys. Plasmas 31, 030501 (2024), review of facility effects", "url": "https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/31/3/030501/3268073/A-review-of-the-impact-of-ground-test-related" }, { "label": "NASA JANUS institute (Space Technology Research Institute)", "url": "https://hpepl.ae.gatech.edu/research" }, { "label": "AIAA recommended practices for EP measurement", "url": "https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36751" } ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Chamber models locked in proprietary black boxes. Predictive matching stays in-house.", "actors": [ "Applied Materials", "Lam Research" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Digital twins of the vacuum park: nascent.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Intel" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Neutral gas dynamics in the divertor coupled to the edge plasma, full fuel cycle simulation. Experimental validation is the missing half.", "actors": [ "Commonwealth Fusion", "Kyoto Fusioneering", "Proxima Fusion" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Conditioning prediction remains beyond the codes. Digital twins of accelerator vacuum are embryonic.", "actors": [ "CERN", "SLAC" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "marginal", "challenge": "Vacuum lifetime prediction for sealed devices. Thin, for now.", "actors": [ "Infleqtion" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Tube life models have been empirical for seventy years. A physics-based model of sealed aging does not exist.", "actors": [ "Varex Imaging", "Thales (Thonon)" ] }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Component datasheets do not compose into system predictions, and machine-readable component data still does not exist. NASA's Goddard database covers five decades of E595 screening in percent of mass, which no one can dimension a pump from. This site now publishes an open base of specific rates at /tools/outgassing/ and /data/outgassing.json, CC BY 4.0, where every value carries its species, its surface state, its measurement temperature and the pumping time it was read at, and where sources that disagree are published side by side with nothing retained. It covers 22 of the 85 materials of the taxonomy from 12 sources, three of its twelve families carry no card at all, and ceramics and glasses stand at one card of twenty. One small base on one row is not a maintained open home for the field.", "actors": [ "Kurt J. Lesker", "MKS Instruments", "VACOM" ], "sources": [ { "label": "NASA GSFC Outgassing Database (E595 screening, five decades)", "url": "https://etd.gsfc.nasa.gov/capabilities/outgassing-database/" }, { "label": "Mean Free Path outgassing base, 22 materials, 12 sources, CC BY 4.0", "url": "https://pierreribault.com/data/outgassing.json" } ], "ref": "NASA GSFC Outgassing Data (ASTM E595 compendium) · https://outgassing.nasa.gov" }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Dated contamination transport codes and artisanal venting analyses. An open modernization is missing.", "actors": [ "NASA JPL Space Simulator", "ESA ESTEC Test Centre" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment", "maturity": "industrialized", "challenge": "UHV-grade quality at industrial volume. The machines ship, by the thousand.", "actors": [ "ASML", "Applied Materials" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "semiconductor-fabs", "maturity": "industrialized", "challenge": "The champion sector of vacuum at scale: thousands of pumps per fab, uptime as religion. The open edge: energy of the vacuum park, helium recovery, sustainability.", "actors": [ "TSMC", "Samsung Semiconductor", "Intel" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "fusion-private", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "From prototype to power plant: vacuum systems designed for availability and maintenance in activated environments, with a supply chain concentrated under few flags.", "actors": [ "Commonwealth Fusion", "Tokamak Energy", "Type One Energy" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "big-science", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Vacuum by the kilometer: coating production rates and cost per meter for the next colliders.", "actors": [ "CERN", "IHEP / CSNS" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "quantum", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "From the lab cryostat to the datacenter: vacuum-cryo infrastructure per qubit as a dominant cost line of million-qubit roadmaps.", "actors": [ "IBM Quantum", "Google Quantum AI", "PsiQuantum" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "vacuum-electronics", "maturity": "industrialized", "challenge": "The only sector that already solved sealed UHV in mass production, decades ago. Its past is the future of the quantum and fusion columns.", "actors": [ "Varex Imaging", "Canon ETD", "Comet / YXLON" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "vacuum-supply", "maturity": "active", "challenge": "The suppliers scaling themselves, pulled by semiconductors today, quantum and fusion tomorrow.", "actors": [ "VAT Group", "Edwards Vacuum", "Pfeiffer Vacuum" ] }, { "row": "scale", "sector": "space-test", "maturity": "open", "challenge": "Constellation cadence against the thermal vacuum bottleneck: compress the test, sample by risk, test like you fly at a production rate.", "actors": [ "SpaceX Starlink", "Rocket Lab", "Thales Alenia Space" ] } ], "twins": [ { "id": "conditioning", "title": "Conditioning: five names", "note": "High voltage processing, RF processing, seasoning, boronization, multipaction conditioning. One ritual, no model.", "members": [ { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "vacuum-electronics" }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "big-science" }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "space-test" }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment" }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "fusion-private" } ] }, { "id": "hydrogen-uniforms", "title": "Hydrogen, four uniforms", "note": "Q-disease in niobium, tritium inventory, hydrogen-limited trap lifetimes, blistered EUV mirrors. One enemy.", "members": [ { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "big-science" }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "fusion-private" }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "quantum" }, { "row": "hydrogen", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment" } ] }, { "id": "sealed-device", "title": "The sealed device", "note": "Seventy years of tube getter craft, needed verbatim by chip-scale atom cells and quantum packages.", "members": [ { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "vacuum-electronics" }, { "row": "functional-surfaces", "sector": "quantum" } ] }, { "id": "dust", "title": "The particle, four victims", "note": "Tin debris, cavity field emitters, tritiated dust, final optics under fire. The same speck.", "members": [ { "row": "particles", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment" }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "big-science" }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "fusion-private" }, { "row": "particles", "sector": "space-test" } ] }, { "id": "blind-vacuum", "title": "The vacuum you cannot measure", "note": "No gauge survives the millikelvin stage, no gauge fits a sealed tube. Both run inferred.", "members": [ { "row": "metrology", "sector": "quantum" }, { "row": "metrology", "sector": "vacuum-electronics" } ] }, { "id": "lying-chamber", "title": "The chamber that lies", "note": "Electric propulsion backsputter and the first-wafer effect: the test installation manufactures its own result.", "members": [ { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "space-test" }, { "row": "plasma-surface", "sector": "semiconductor-equipment" } ] }, { "id": "dead-data", "title": "Dead data", "note": "Screening data has a home, rate data does not. Contamination codes from another era, datasheets that do not compose.", "members": [ { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "vacuum-supply" }, { "row": "simulation-data", "sector": "space-test" }, { "row": "stimulated-desorption", "sector": "vacuum-supply" } ] }, { "id": "triple-junction", "title": "The triple junction", "note": "Metal, ceramic and vacuum meet on one line. Tube collectors, DC photoguns, megavolt neutral beam bushings: the same line fails first.", "members": [ { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "vacuum-electronics" }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "big-science" }, { "row": "high-voltage", "sector": "fusion-private" } ] } ], "corrections": [ { "date": "2026-07-07", "note": "Nikon removed from the stimulated desorption equipment cell: the challenge as written is EUV and Nikon is not. An actor fix, not a regrade. The hydrogen supply cell now carries its unit, 1e-13 mbar·L/s/cm². A triple junction twin added across the three high voltage cells that share the metal-ceramic-vacuum line." }, { "date": "2026-07-07", "note": "Electric propulsion facility effects regraded from desert to open after a field check: a dedicated NASA institute and a 2024 review exist. The open-data cells rewritten to name what exists, the Goddard outgassing database and cleanliness standards, and what does not: rate-resolved outgassing data and in-operation particle certification.", "sources": [ { "label": "Foster & Topham, Phys. Plasmas 31, 030501 (2024), review of facility effects", "url": "https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pop/article/31/3/030501/3268073/A-review-of-the-impact-of-ground-test-related" }, { "label": "NASA JANUS institute (Space Technology Research Institute)", "url": "https://hpepl.ae.gatech.edu/research" } ] } ] } }