Era 2: Section 2
1968-1978: The Rise to Prominence

Education

The main educational program during this Era was the rapid development of the short course program, which is discussed in the following section. However, the development of a monograph program resulted from the course development. During discussions at the 1970 Education Committee meeting, it was suggested that monographs should be written as a supplement to short courses. The first actual AVS Monograph, published in 1975, was the “Vacuum Hazards Manual” which Tom Thomas, then at Washington State University, coordinated; Len Beavis, the Education Committee chair, and Vivienne Harwood were the other main contributors. Len remained as Education Committee chair through 1973 and established the precedent that, to encourage fresh ideas, the maximum term of the chair would be 3 years. Vivienne succeeded Len as chair of the Committee.

There was some controversy over the concept of paying honoraria to AVS members for generating monographs and teaching courses. A special committee, with Bill Bottoms as chair, recommended in 1975 that honoraria be paid for teaching but not for authoring a monograph; a monograph was considered similar to a scientific paper. Only a few monographs were published during this era; one of these, “Bibliography on Metallization Materials and Techniques for Silicon Devices” was a collection of relevant references by John Vossen and others at RCA and was published by the Thin Film Division. In 1978, Rey Whetten was appointed Editor of the Monograph Series.

In 1971, an offer from Marcel Dekker, Inc. to publish “Experimental Vacuum Science and Technology” which had been authored by Vivienne Harwood, was accepted by the Board. It was eventually published in 1973 at a price of $12.38 to members and $16.50 to non-members. Reviewers welcomed it as a valuable teaching manual which complemented the existing texts on general theory and techniques and 675 copies had been sold by June! In 2002, Vivienne recovered the publication rights from Marcel Dekker. In 1972, a “Leak Detection Handbook" was published for use with the 35mm film which had been produced earlier.

Videotaping of talks at symposia was initiated by the Thin Film Division, in the person of Don Mattox. He arranged for the taping of eight talks at the New Mexico Chapter symposium in April, 1973. This was followed by the taping of two talks at the Greater New York Chapter symposium in December, 1973 and three talks at the Florida Chapter in February, 1974. The list of talks was printed in the June, 1974 Newsletter. The objective was to allow members who were unable to attend the symposia to hear, and see, interesting talks.

The involvement with San Jose City College on promoting vacuum education during Era 1 diminished after 1968. The plan for a summer college program on vacuum technology was dropped because of a lack of interest from the colleges. However, in parallel with the development of the AVS courses, there were activities at the chapter level. In Northern California, classes in vacuum technology were being given at Hayward College, which became Los Positas Community College; Bill Brunner and Howard Patton were instructors for both programs. In 1980 the College created an AA degree curriculum with vacuum technology as the core. One of the first graduates to receive this degree was Mike Benapfl who was to become an instructor for both the Los Positas program and AVS. An important topic of discussion at the first meeting of the Central States Chapter at Kansas State University in October, 1968, was vacuum technology for high school students!

AVS also helped to publicize other educational opportunities. In 1970, summer programs on electron microscopy at Cornell and the University of Michigan were included in the announcements in JVST.

Courses

The vacuum technology course in 1968 had clearly been a success as had courses given by Chapters, and demonstrated that there was a need for such training. Another AVS/ISA course, on “Vacuum Instrumentation and Technology”, taught by John Kurtz, was given in Cleveland, in June, 1969. There were sections on pumps, gauges, valves, safety and kinetic theory and the AVS film “Introduction to High Vacuum” was shown; the fee was $75. Courses were also co-sponsored by ISA with the New England Section, and with the AVS at the National Symposium in Seattle. However, courses to be held in conjunction with a Vacuum Metallurgy conference in Pittsburgh in 1969 were cancelled by ISA.

There was initial doubt expressed about holding the courses at the 1969 Symposium in Seattle; it was thought that too many courses had already been given in the area. However, it was decided to go ahead when John Dillon and Charles Gosselin argued that many of the attendees at the previous courses had come from other parts of the country. A three-day course was taught by Gene Culver of the Oregon Technical Institute, with the assistance of Bill Brunner and Norman Milleron; the course text was Practical Vacuum Techniques by W.H. Brunner and T. Batzer. Once again the course was a great success; there were 130 registrants from twenty states and two Canadian provinces. However, there were some difficulties in coordinating the arrangements made by ISA in Pittsburgh with those of the Local Arrangements Committee in Seattle, and it was decided at the Business Meeting that AVS should organize the courses itself, without ISA.

In April 1970 a course sponsored by the New York Thin Film Chapter and ISA, on “Practical Vacuum Techniques and Instrumentation” at Tarrytown, had an overflow registration. Kurtz also taught a course, sponsored by the New England Section and the new Surface Science Division, on “Vacuum Instruments & Techniques” in April, 1970. The Midwest Section ran a two day Technician Training School at Argonne in May, 1970 and a course for “vacuum technicians” was taught by Bill Brunner at a joint meeting of the Southwest Section and the Vacuum Metallurgy Division at the Anaheim Convention Center in June.

Details of the course program from 1969 till 1981 were given in a JVST article and personal views of the beginning of the program have been provided by both Vivienne Harwood and Len Beavis. Len recalls that he became Education Committee chair in 1970 when John Dillon resigned after promotion to Graduate Dean at the University of Louisville. Len had only been appointed to the Committee in 1969 by Bill Lange, who, as President-Elect, had attended the New Mexico Section’s symposium in 1969 and sat in on some of the vacuum technology course which Len was teaching.

As Chair, Len had great difficulty in obtaining any information from ISA about the net income from the Seattle course, which was to be divided equally between AVS and ISA; AVS did eventually receive a small sum from ISA. However, the Education Committee considered it was quite capable of operating the short course program without ISA assistance and Vivienne and Don Novotny organized the first National Short Course program at the 1970 Symposium in Washington. Since there were 103 registrants for the “Vacuum Technology” course, two classes, each lasting one and a half days, were held; one was for technicians and the other for a more advanced level. There were a total of eleven instructors with each teaching specific topics.

Len Beavis recalls that the Committee’s plan for a 1971 program, which included the courses to be offered, a list of potential instructors, and a budget, was discussed at a Board meeting in December when the 1971 AVS budget was to be approved. For two days, every detail of AVS receipts and spending was discussed but, with the promise of $11,000 revenue, the much enlarged Education Committee budget was rapidly approved! Vivienne Harwood managed the courses at the 1971 Symposium and the actual income was $22,000! The “Vacuum Technology” course was taught over two and a half days and was followed by two, separate, two and a half day courses on “Vacuum Processes” and “Vacuum System Technology”. The course fee for each was $100, with $25 for students. Vivienne Harwood served as the coordinator of the Short Course program, with great effectiveness, throughout this Era when the Education Committee was responsible for the program. Her contribution to the development of the courses and their popularity was recognized by the Board with a special presentation to Vivienne at the end of 1978.

At the 1972 Symposium in Chicago, the concept of one day courses on specific topics was developed to augment the “Vacuum Technology” course. Three one day courses were given; these were “Partial Pressure Analysis”, “Surface Analysis” and “Fundamentals of Sputtering Technology”; the one-day course fee was $50 compared with $125 for the 3-day basic vacuum course. The Vacuum Technology course was also given at the Florida Chapter meeting in 1972 and was offered to all chapters; the Education Committee underwrote any losses but received 40% of any profit.

In the next few years the course program continued to grow in the number both of courses and registrants. “Freeze Drying” and “Vacuum Microbalance Techniques” courses were added for the 1973 Symposium. Starting in 1973, the course descriptions were published in the Newsletter. The registration fees also increased; in 1975, the fee for 1-day courses ranged from $95 to $125 while the “Vacuum Technology” course fee was $275. All except one of the the courses at the 1977 Symposium were sold out; there were over 400 course registrations by 283 individuals. Registrations increased again to 525 in 1978 with three new one-day courses added to the program. In response to a suggestion that equipment should be shown during the “Vacuum Technology” course, it was decided in 1975 that the class should be given tours of the exhibit in small groups. Later, Ray Berg assembled demonstration kits of vacuum gauges, etc. for use with the course and these were shipped from site to site as required.

At the last Board meeting of 1974, the honorarium for teaching a course was set at $300 per day but there was much controversy over the concept of paying honoraria to AVS members. A special committee was established and recommended in 1975 that honoraria be paid for teaching a course but not for authoring a monograph!

The first “on-site” course to be given by AVS was at NASA Goddard in 1976. The program of courses offered at Chapter meetings also expanded during this Era and, where possible, are listed in the individual Chapter histories. Several of the courses which became part of the National program were first given at the chapter level.

Other organizations were also presenting courses during this period. Several manufacturers of vacuum equipment held workshops, which naturally dealt mainly with their equipment. There were also more specialized courses, such as a 4 day course on “Surface Instrumentation” at the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1974. These were often advertised in the Newsletter.

Standards and Recommended Practices

In 1969, the U.S. member of the International Standards Organization (ISO) became ANSI, which was supported by industry rather than the U.S. government. Only ANSI could promulgate standards for adoption by ISO. In 1969, three AVS representatives attended an ISO meeting in West Germany to discuss standards which had been previously developed by AVS. In 1972, Stan Ruthberg took over from Ben Dayton as the liaison with ANSI. In 1974, ANSI asked AVS to contribute $2,000 annually to support the U.S. representation to ISO but the Board declined because it felt that AVS had very little influence in ANSI.

In his “letter from the outgoing President” in 1972, R.F. Bunshah noted that a new standard on “Procedures for Calibration of Hot Filament Ionization Gas Controls” had been completed and that all AVS standards were listed in the NBS Publication 329 “Index of U S Voluntary Engineering Standards.”

In 1973, “Procedure for Measuring the Ultimate Pressure of Capture Pumps” was published in JVST, bringing the number of published tentative standards to twenty-six. Two more, on helium leak detector calibration and bakable all-metal valves, were published in 1973 but the committee activity was very low for the next few years. In 1976, each AVS member received a copy of all the AVS Standards. Although eight sub-committees had been established to examine different topics, there was a shortage of volunteers due to the poor economic situation and only one of these sub-committees was active during 1975. The Committee did decide in 1974 that the pressure units in all AVS standards should be changed to Pascals by the end of 1977. The Vacuum Hazards Manual was published in 1975.

In 1968, Manfred Kaminsky and Ben Dayton had been appointed co-chairs of a sub-committee to revise the “Glossary of Terms” which had been published in 1958; it was not intended as an AVS standard. A new special committee had about sixty members divided into fourteen subject groups with the objective of completing the revision within two years. Extensive lists of suggested new terms were prepared. However, it turned out to be a very slow process, and after complaints at various times, this sub-committee was disbanded at the end of 1978 and the responsibility for publication transferred to the Education Committee. The revised glossary was published in 1979.

In 1976, the Committee advertised in the Newsletter for members interested in having AVS provide a gauge calibration service and for comments on methods and accuracy and desirability of a transfer standard gauge. In 1976, results from a “Round Robin” experiment on transfer gauges revealed that there was a substantial variation between laboratories in North America and $2000 was committed to send the gauges for comparative measurements in England and Germany. The National Bureau of Standards (NBS) had announced in 1973 that it would discontinue its vacuum standardization program on the grounds that there was no need for it. The committee decided to press NBS for a transfer gauge but when NBS then requested that AVS provide the salary for a person to operate their automatic gauge calibration system. AVS declined.

Divisions

Two Divisions, Vacuum Metallurgy and Thin Film, had been formed in Era 1; their membership in 1970 was 300 and 800 respectively. Three new Divisions were formed in this Era; Surface Science, Vacuum Technology and Electronic Materials and Processes.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Vacuum Metallurgy Division had two main components, the melters and the coaters; in June, 1976, the Division formed two “sub-divisions” to represent these two interests: Vacuum Thick Films and Vacuum Melting and Casting. The latter held the International Conference on Vacuum Metallurgy at 3-year intervals, Starting in 1974, the coaters held a separate annual conference in cooperation with the Thin Film Division. The interests of the VMD and TFD were already quite similar and the two divisions jointly organized a conference on “Structure/Property Relationships on Thick Films & Bulk Coatings” in San Francisco in February, 1974. This became the International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings (ICMC), with the TFD as a co-sponsor with VMD; the first conference with this name was held in April, 1975 in San Francisco and has been held each year since then. At the 1974 conference, Ron Bunshah, who was both VMD and conference chair, remarked that the conference was “conceived and proposed as an experiment to see if one can put on a somewhat common footing the large amount of information that has been developed on this topic using several different technologies to produce the coatings.” This concept flourished, and the conference grew in size from just 39 papers at the first conference to over 700 papers at the 2001 meeting.

In February, 1968, Frank Propst proposed to the Board that a Surface Science Division be formed and he attended a meeting at Berkeley in June to discuss this with the small surface science community. A further meeting was held during the 1968 Symposium. The first paper about Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was published in 1968, and the most developed instruments in surface science at the time were Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED), field ion microscopy (FIM), and the field emission microscope (FEM). The embryonic community of surface scientists working in these areas did not have a formal organizational focus, except perhaps for the Nottingham Conference on Physical Electronics, held annually at MIT, and the LEED theory seminar group. The President, Paul Redhead, asked Peter Hobson to assess the level of support for a SSD in the AVS. He formed a committee which surveyed over fifty laboratories involved in surface science; although only half were in favor, the committee reported to the Board that it was willing to attempt the formation of the SSD. The Board not only recommended its formation but also appointed all the members of the ad hoc committee as the Temporary Executive Committee until elections could be held during the Symposium in Seattle in 1969. The committee organized a very successful, all-invited program for the 1969 Symposium and Hobson was elected Chair at the Division’s initial meeting there; Bob Park was elected Chair for 1971 and Charlie Duke for 1972. By January, 1970, the SSD had 185 members. The new Executive Committee made good on its commitment to organize a truly International Conference on Surface Science (ICSS-1), which was held in 1971, jointly with the 5^th International Vacuum Congress and the 18^th AVS National Symposium in Boston.”

The origin of the Surface Science Division (SSD) was recalled in the July/August issue of the Newsletter by J.P. Hobson and A. Czanderna. “By 1968 two things were clear: (1) a detailed study of surfaces required ultrahigh vacuum (UHV, i.e., <10^-11 Pascal or <10^-9 Torr) to maintain a clean surface, once cleaned; and (2) the design of devices for the production and measurement of UHV required a knowledge of surfaces. This is because surface reactions involving molecules, electrons, ions, and photons vastly outnumber gas phase reactions at these pressures. This natural synergism was the motivation for forming the SSD of the AVS. Translating this idea into a working reality was not simple.”

The vacuum technology community had been the major force during the original formation of the Committee on Vacuum Techniques and, with the formation of the first three technical divisions, a loss of identity began to be felt in this community. Jack Singleton recalled the reasons for the formation of the Vacuum Technology Division.

“For the first few years after the formation of the society the published proceedings of the annual Symposium reflected the original interests of the founders, which were the practical aspects of the production, measurement and use of vacuum. But the society welcomed all those interested in the applications of vacuum and, as the topics extended beyond the initial objectives, so came the formation of divisions to coordinate the new directions. With the formation of the Thin Film and Surface Science Divisions, papers on these topics increasingly dominated the annual Symposium. Some members whose interests remained largely in the production, measurement and maintenance of vacuum began to urge the formation of a Vacuum Technology Division to solicit more presentations in their field of interest, especially at the annual Symposium. There were, however, some people who expressed concern at the prospect of the new division. With the rapidly increasing importance of the new divisions, there was a fear that exchange of ideas across topical lines was disappearing; some members who had published happily in the earlier, non-refereed, proceedings were somewhat reluctant to subject their work to possibly hostile referees for the relatively new JVST; last, but not least, nuts-and-bolts practitioners worried that some of the, presumably, more erudite technologists (i.e. those who insisted on including a consideration of the theoretical basis to explain the means to a practical end!), might dominate the new division, and even denigrate the well tested and highly successful practical approach.”

During 1969-1970, Dick Denton and Jim Lafferty brought the issue to the Board of Directors which asked Dick to poll the general membership for their opinion. The response was positive and, following an organizational meeting at the 1969 Symposium in Seattle, the new Division became a reality and its by-laws were approved in April, 1970. The VTD succeeded in increasing the number of contributions to the technology of vacuum at the Symposium, and in focusing attention on areas of critical importance. It remained inclusive of all its members, developed joint sessions with other divisions at the National Symposium, and successfully worked to include a useful section on “Shop Notes” in the JVST. As a relatively mature topic, it was destined to remain a smaller contributor to AVS symposia, but it will always be a topic which cannot be ignored.

The Electronics and Materials Processing Division (EMPD) was founded in 1978 after a proposal to the Board of Directors by Charlie Duke and Bill Spicer. As described in his President's address, Charlie was to become AVS President the following year and the formation of the EMPD was the initial action in his initiative to bring electronics materials processing into the AVS, in order to make the AVS the home of the basic science underlying the microelectronics industry. Bill Spicer was appointed the first chair in August, 1978 and served through 1979. The division commenced operation in 1979 with an emphasis on sponsoring topical conferences on electronic materials and devices. By 1980 it already was negotiating sponsorship of conferences on High-Speed Digital Technologies, Optical Characterization of Thin Films, The Physics of Compound Semiconductor Interfaces ("PCSI"), Ion, Photon and Electron Beans ("Three Beams"), HgCdTe, and the MBE workshop. It had 715 members in 1979, the same number as the Vacuum Technology Division and the second largest after the Thin Film Division, which had then over 900 members.

Membership of each Division is open to all members of the AVS on payment of a one-time registration fee; an annual fee of $2 was originally imposed, but this produced negligible net income and was eliminated in 1972 to reduce paperwork. The Board determined that Divisions which had bank balances over $2,000 would receive only the annual “formula allotment” but this “formula funding” was abolished at the end of 1973.

The Divisions sponsor meetings in their spheres of interest, either individually or in co-sponsorship with other Divisions, Chapters, or outside nonprofit groups. However, the main activity of all the Divisions, except VMD, was organizing the program for the annual National Symposium; VMD organizes the annual ICMC. The Program Committee for the Symposium was originally a small group with members from each division, functioning as a single body in the selection of abstracts. As the number of papers increased, the Committee developed into separate divisional groups which are responsible for identifying topics and suitable invited speakers for the assembly of the final program. This became a more involved process as the number of papers increased and the interactions between the divisional groups tended to become secondary.

Details of the Divisional activities and the chairs of the Divisions are given in the appropriate Division Histories.

Sections and Chapters

A number of new Sections or Chapters were established during this Era. The Minnesota Joint Chapter, comprising Minnesota and the Dakotas, was approved following a request in 1969 by T.E. Hutchinson for the formation of a joint chapter of the Surface Science and Thin Film Divisions; a group of 80 had attended a meeting in April that year. At the business meeting of the Midwest Section in 1970, held during its 8^th annual symposium in May, approval was given to petition the Board to upgrade the Great Lakes Chapter to the Great Lakes Section with two chapters; Central Indiana & ANL-NAL (Chicago Metropolitan). The Central Indiana Chapter was to be within either the Great Lakes or Midwest Sections, depending on where the chapter boundaries were fixed. The new Great Lakes Section Chair was Philip M Danielson. T Hutchison resigned as chair of the Midwest Section in December, 1970 because he was no longer involved in the field. The Board approved the changes and agreed to accept his resignation upon receipt of the dues of the new chair, Charles Gosselin!

The Greater New York Chapter was formed in 1970. Milt Ohring recalls that “this was in response to the quiet revolution that was occurring in thin film science and technology, particularly in its applications to microelectronics. Well before Silicon Valley blossomed in Northern California, much of the fundamental research in microelectronics was conducted at the three most prominent corporate research laboratories in the United States, namely AT &T Bell Telephone Laboratories (Murray Hill, NJ), IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, NY) and RCA David Sarnoff Research Center (Princeton, NJ). Through conversations among staff members primarily from these three laboratories at an early Gordon conference devoted to thin films, the idea germinated for a local chapter of the American Vacuum Society that would air research advances in thin films and surface science. Among the early founders of the chapter were Bob Marcus of Bell Labs, Peter Mark of Princeton University, Jules Levine of RCA and P. Beaudonin of IBM.”

The increasing number of chapters and their different by-laws became a concern and it was suggested in 1969 that a uniform set of by-laws for Chapters, Sections and Divisions be developed. Chapters existed within both Sections and Divisions, as was permitted by the Constitution, but this caused some confusion. The Sections tended to be seen as a miniature society rather than as a geographic entity. A Special Study group was formed, with Lew Hull as chair, to resolve the various issues. In 1970, it recommended that two entities should report to the Board; Divisions would represent the technical interest groups and Regional Administrative Groups (RAG) would represent the geographical areas. Sections would be eliminated and replaced by Chapters within a RAG. The Executive Committee of each RAG would consist of the chairman and vice-chairman of each Chapter and they would elect the officers of the RAG.

Ron Bunshah and Lew Hull were co-chairs of a committee to define the boundaries of both RAGs and Chapters. The new structure was established by AVS By-law changes which were approved in the 1970 membership ballot and took effect in 1971. The previous Sections were assigned to RAGs based upon their geographic boundaries.. During 1971, members were assigned to the appropriate Chapter with the option of belonging to a second Chapter on payment of a one-time fee. Each Chapter was to operate according to revised by-laws which were essentially the same for all chapters; the Uniform Chapter by-laws were approved by the Board on December 3, 1971.

Many of the Chapters retained the name of the Section but the Midwest, and Southwest Sections disappeared. The lineage of the Chapters is connected to their original Sections in each chapter history.

The Florida Chapter was the first to be formed under this new structure; it was approved in April, 1971 within the new Southeast RAG, which was formed by dividing the Midwest RAG into Southeast and South Central RAG’s with Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma comprising the latter. In early 1972, Tennessee and Arkansas were transferred to the Southeast RAG because it was hoped that a chapter could be formed between groups in Huntsville, Alabama and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Oklahoma was transferred to the New Mexico RAG, leaving Arkansas alone in the South-Central RAG. The formation of the Florida Chapter had its beginning in 1970, when the founding father, C.R.”Claude” Winkelman, transferred from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Neutron Devices Department of the General Electric Company in Largo, Florida; the Florida Chapter essentially began as an off-shoot of the very successful New Mexico Chapter! The first two day Symposium on “Applied Vacuum Science and Technology”, was held in February, 1972, at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, and was was supported by nine vendors with table top exhibits. A course on “Vacuum Technology" was taught by Ron Outlaw and there was an AVS Board meeting.

The Wisconsin Chapter was approved in December, 1972, with Prof. Joyadevaiah as the initial Chair. In October, 1973, the two New England Chapters combined into one and the Michigan Chapter was approved. The Upstate New York Chapter, which also included Eastern Canada, was approved in December, 1973, with Lewis B. Leder as Chair.

In February, 1975, the New Mexico RAG was renamed the Southwest RAG in the expectation that new chapters would form in Arizona and Texas. However, the whole idea of RAGs was already being questioned although no action was needed because there were no further applications to form Chapters until 1979, when the Arizona Chapter was formed. The RAGs did not noticeably facilitate governance of the Society, and they were consequently dissolved in 1983, leaving each Chapter to report directly to the board, as did the Divisions.

The Chapters and Divisions Committee was intended to be the conduit for frequent communication between both Chapters and Divisions and the AVS Board. Prior to 1978, the Committee consisted of the AVS President-Elect alone and, perhaps not surprisingly, little communication actually occurred. There was only one formal meeting of Chapters and Division Chairs with this committee of one, and that was held during the Symposium, only a few months before new officers would take over! Recognizing this as a problem, the President, Len Beavis, appointed a full Chapters and Divisions Committee with the Chairman expected to serve for at least two years. As a result of the work of this Committee, the communication improved greatly. The Committee developed a manual for Chairs of Chapters and Divisions which included all AVS policies and procedures to which Chapters and Divisions must adhere (mainly in order to comply with IRS and other government regulations) as well as a listing of various services that the Society could provide to them.

Most Chapters held an annual symposium of one or more days, in some cases being truly national in scope. The combination of such symposia, with an exhibit and a group of short courses, provided a group of services to the community, often generating funds to support other chapter activities. The chapter symposia are in many cases a smaller version of the annual AVS Symposium. Chapters also held dinner meetings, often with an invited speaker, or toured local facilities of interest to their members. The range of activities of different Chapters is given in the histories of the individual Chapters; in some cases, this information has been garnered only from the AVS Newsletter and may be incomplete.

Interactions

Government Interactions

In this Era there were several interactions with the US government and its agencies which were not all positive! The positive one was a conference co-sponsored by the AVS and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) on “Potential Uses of the Space Shuttle for Scientific and Engineering Studies.” This was initiated in 1976 by Hans Mark, the director of the NASA Ames facility in California, and Len Beavis, who were brought together by Peter Mark; Hans had been the speaker at the 1974 Awards Lunch. They decided that a joint symposium should be held sometime in 1977 or 1978 and Len agreed to organize it. However, when he became President-Elect, Bill Westwood took over as chair. The symposium was held at the Ames Research Center in California in 1977. The response was poor with only 75 attendees and 25 “no shows”, including some of the astronauts.

Interesting and innovative talks were given by a number of AVS members but they generally concluded that the vacuum environment outside the space shuttle was unsuitable for useful experiments. The only experiment which actually did fly, about twenty years later, was a proposal by Ron Outlaw for a “wake shield” - essentially an aluminum shield on a tether to the shuttle which would “sweep out” the gas and give an improved vacuum, or would provide a 5eV beam of atomic oxygen through a hole in the shield. The proceedings of the conference were published in JVST; the special editor for the proceedings was Helmut Poppa, who then worked at NASA Ames. Hans Mark became under-Secretary for the Air Force and Bill Westwood later drew upon the connection to watch a shuttle launch from the VIP stand!

There were several IRS audits in this period which caused some concerns, although the final outcome was positive in that the (501).[c]. (3) tax status was maintained. This IRS classification is not a trivial matter, being, for example, a necessary condition for the Society to retain its membership in the American Institute of Physics. In 1971, the IRS did rule that, since AVS was not a Private Foundation, it should retain its tax-exempt status. However, in 1974, following an audit of the tax years 1970 and 1971, the IRS claimed that the Society was not conforming to the requirements for a tax-exempt organization under the (501).[c]. (3) classification because this required that AVS should be involved in “direct sponsorship of research.” Of course, AIP and other scientific societies would also not meet this criterion and a protest was filed. After a lengthy confrontation, the matter was resolved satisfactorily. In that investigation, the only Society activity cited as unrelated business, and therefore subject to taxation, was advertising in JVST. The short course and scholarship programs of the Society were seen as crucial to the retention of the not-for-profit classification, but, perversely, the publication of JVST was not considered of significance, since that particular IRS reviewer believed JVST to be of more significance in the enhancement of author reputation, than in the transmission of scientific information. AVS did pay a total of $830 in back taxes on the advertising income for 1974-6.

The U.S. Army Research Office had provided $8,000 for support of the AVS Symposium in 1971, on the understanding that it would be returned if the Symposium was profitable. An extended U.S. Army audit finally concluded, in 1974, that $3,038 had been improperly spent; AVS returned this sum, which was no doubt much less than the cost of the audit! In 1974, the Mercer County (New Jersey) District Attorney’s office informed AVS that it was liable for debts owed by a company “Meetings and Leisure” which had been used by the Vacuum Metallurgy Division for publicity and meeting arrangements. There had been previous problems with this company over the misuse of the AVS mailing list. This time, the company had accepted payments from potential attendees at the “Conference on Structure-Property Relationships in Thick Films and Bulk Coatings” but had not made the payments to the conference before going out of business. The matter was settled when VMD repaid the deposits.

Interactions with Societies

The AVS had been an affiliate of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) since April 1963. In February 1972, the President, Dan Bills, requested Charlie Duke to form a committee to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the AVS applying for full membership in the AIP. This Committee consisted of Charlie, Jim Lafferty and Lew Hull. Bob Schrieffer (a Nobel prize-winner who had been an invited speaker at the 1971 International Conference on Solid Surfaces [ICSS-1]) was invited to serve but declined on the grounds that he thought that surface science as an activity should find a home in the American Physical Society (APS) rather than the AVS. The implication was that the AVS should remain a technologically focused society outside the sphere of the physics community as embodied in the AIP. The Committee reported that significant financial advantages, such as a 40% reduction in the annual bill for AIP services, would accrue from full membership but also noting that strong objections would be raised to the change of status by "powerful individuals in... the APS".

The Committee drafted a letter to Wallace Waterfall, then Executive Director of the AIP, requesting consideration of the AVS as a full member of the AIP. Dan Bills formally submitted the letter on June 9, 1972. The AIP refused to consider this petition until their long range planning committee completed a plan for the AIP’s future directions. Thus, the petition for full membership of AVS into AIP was put on indefinite hold, where it remained for three years.

On May 12, 1975, Sid Millman, Secretary of the AIP, wrote to Jack Singleton, the AVS Clerk, inquiring if the AVS wished to be considered for associate membership in the AIP and requesting an updated petition if that were the case. Charlie Duke, who was now a Director, was asked to review this offer and make a recommendation to the Board. He examined the grounds that the AIP offered for considering the AVS as a candidate for associate rather than full membership, and noted that these had been contradicted by actions of the AIP Governing Board in the previous three years. Thus, he recommended to the AVS Board that they once again proceed with a petition for full member status. On June 6, 1975 AVS submitted a revised petition for full membership. The main themes of this petition were the interdisciplinary nature of the AVS; the importance of its educational programs to the diffusion of the knowledge of physics; the international recognition accorded the scientific quality of its programs ( e.g., ICSS-1), its journal, its awards, and the dynamic character of its scientific agenda, constantly expanding into new interdisciplinary forefront areas. It was even noted parenthetically that some of the seminal work reported at ICSS-1 and published in the JVST was based in part on a paper written by the chairman of the AIP Board, Phil Morse.

This time, however, Charlie Duke did not leave the fate of the AVS petition to chance. His boss at Xerox, Jack Goldman, was a member of the AIP Governing Board, so Charlie contacted both him and George Pake, who headed the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and was later to become a President of the American Physical Society, and obtained their support. He also contacted two Nobel Prize winners in physics, John Bardeen and Leo Esaki, the latter having served as an AVS Director, and Fred Seitz to request their support. Leo wrote a formal letter on behalf of the AVS and John and Fred made phone calls. Jack Goldman personally monitored the progress of the AVS petition through the AIP hierarchy. The AIP Governing Board unanimously approved this petition at its meeting on October 4, 1975 and it was submitted to the AIP member societies for final approval, which was quickly obtained. On March 30, 1976, Sid Millman informed the President of the AVS, Rey Whetten, that "on Saturday March 27 the American Vacuum Society was officially elected a Member Society of the American Institute of Physics." After four years of travail, the saga finally was over.

This event was important for several reasons. First, it carried with it recognition by the eight largest physics based societies in the U.S. that the AVS was a peer society. Second, all AVS members automatically became members of AIP and received Physics Today, as they still do. Third, financial advantages accrued to AVS by allowing the Society access to the economies of scale inherent in the use of such AIP services. Fourth, it provided AVS members access to several AIP services (e.g. employment placement service).

The AVS association with AIP has been, and continues to be, mutually beneficial. As a Member Society, AVS has a number of representatives on the AIP Governing Board; the number is determined by the number of AVS members. Charlie Duke and Jack Singleton were the initial representatives, in 1976. Currently, AVS has 3 representatives. The Executive Committee of AIP is elected by the Governing Board and several AVS members have served on the Executive Committee. Charlie Duke noted that “due to the interdisciplinary nature and largely industrially based composition of the AVS, the Society plays the role of broadening the exposure of traditionally educated physicists to encompass the multidisciplinary environment of practicing technologists and of channeling such individuals into suitable employment in rapidly growing fields.”

From the early days of the society, there was interaction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). AVS was an affiliate member for several years; Jim Lafferty was the AVS representative to their meetings. In 1972, AAAS proposed that the AVS office be moved from AIP to their new Headquarters. However, in 1977, Homer Hagstrum attended an AAAS meeting and reported that he could see no reason for continuing membership. Despite arguments made by Jim Lafferty, AVS ceased to be involved directly with AAAS.

In 1969, AVS agreed to co-sponsor with IEEE the 10^th Electron, Ion and Laser Beam Technical Symposium, which was held in Washington, DC. Thus began an interaction with “the 3 beams conference” which still continues, although the official name changed; the papers are published in JVST. A special New Group Petitions Committee was established in 1970 to investigate interactions with other groups. In 1971, interaction with the Vacuum Microbalance Group resulted in a special one day session at the 1972 Symposium and the later merging of the group with AVS, greatly helped by the interest and influence of Al Czanderna in both organizations. Al, then at Clarkson College, was chairman of that group of about 100 and he immediately became an active contributor in the AVS Education Committee. In 1971, Leo Garwin, the president of the Cryogenic Society of America (CSA) proposed a joint meeting with AVS; the CSA held their annual conference together with another society although registration for the two conferences were kept separate. However, the Board decided against such a meeting.

In 1974, Leo Esaki chaired the Industry-AVS Interaction Committee to determine whether other conferences should be sponsored and Charlie Duke requested in 1976 that AVS establish procedures for dealing with requests for co-sponsorship. AVS cooperated with the Optical Society of America (OSA) in the organization of a conference on Optical Thin Films in 1976.

In early 1970, the recently formed Association of Vacuum Equipment Manufacturers (AVEM) invited AVS to attend a meeting. AVS decided to express interest in cooperating with them but to avoid direct involvement, since this could jeopardize the tax status. This cooperation was restarted in 1973 by the AVEM president, W.G. Overacker, and the AVEM usually held a meeting on the first day of the National Symposium.

International Interactions

The IUVSTA continued to be a prominent item on every Board meeting during Era 2 for various reasons. In 1971 AVS hosted the International Vacuum Congress and initiated the International Conference on Solid Surfaces, as discussed under Symposia. AVS had committed to transfer $15,000 from the income of the joint meeting to IUVSTA but the meeting was so successful that this was increased to $18,000. Luther Preuss served as President of IUVSTA for the 1971-74 triennium and then as the Scientific Director from 1977 until 1986. H. Schleuning was the AVS Councillor for the 1968-1971 triennium and was followed by Jim Lafferty who served two terms, from 1971 to 1977; Maurice Francombe then also served two terms until 1983.

AVS arranged charter flights for members to attend the Vacuum Congresses in Munich in 1968 and Kyoto in 1974; the fare to Kyoto was $433 from New York and Chicago, and $323 from San Francisco. In Kyoto, forty-eight of the 256 papers given at IVC-6 and forty-six of the 256 at ICSS-2 were by authors from North America. Considerable effort was also expended in arranging flights to the Vacuum Congress in Vienna in 1977 but, in the end, it was decided that it was no longer useful since air travel rules had changed and people wanted more flexible travel options. The slides for the IUVSTA Visual Aids program were developed by Len Beavis and delivered in 1977. In 1978, one of the IUVSTA members, the Netherlands Vacuum Society, asked for, and received, permission to translate the “Vacuum Hazards Manual” into Dutch.

History

In 1973, Hubert Schleuning published in JVST an account of the first twenty years of the Society. The Presidents published a “letter to the members,” or a “President’s Report to AVS members.” In his President’s report “The American Vacuum Society: A multidisciplinary organization,” Len Beavis reviewed some of the Society trends over the ten years 1968-78 and a review of the period 1973 to 1983 was published by John Vossen and Nancy Hammond. These are all listed in Publications on AVS and its History.

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Era 2: Section 2 1968-1978: The Rise to Prominence

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Era 2: Section 2
1968-1978: The Rise to Prominence