Northern California Chapter (and Section)

The Northern California Section was formed in 1964 after a meeting which was held during the National Symposium in San Francisco. The first chair was Jhan M. Khan of Lawrence Livermore. Edmund Hillary spoke at the symposium dinner, and Mirassou wine was served, then a totally unknown winery in San Jose. When the the new AVS organizational structure was introduced in 1971, the Section became both a RAG and a chapter and covered Northern California (zip codes 937-980) and Nevada. The Chapter’s area has remained unchanged since 1971, except for the addition of Hawaii in 1999.

Drawing members from materials science and vacuum-related industries, equipment suppliers, universities, and national labs, the Northern California Chapter of the AVS (NCCAVS) is the Society's largest--supporting all of Northern California and Nevada with activities centered in the heart of Silicon Valley. More information is available on the web page.

The concentration of semiconductor and magnetics- related industry in Northern California enables the Chapter to aim programs based on its traditional strength in vacuum technology toward exploring processes used in these rapidly growing industries. Through technical symposia, users group meetings, equipment exhibitions, short courses, and other educational activities, the NCCAVS provides opportunities for scientists and technologists from the diverse fields that depend on controlled environments to interact and exchange ideas.

To provide a monthly forum for sharing technical knowledge and leading research, the NCCAVS is affiliated with and assists five technical users groups--Chemical Mechanical Polishing, Greater Silicon Valley Ion Implant, Plasma Etch, Surface/Interface Science, and Thin Films. These groups hold regular meetings during which members give technical talks on current developments in the field followed by a group discussion. Membership in each group is free and is not limited to AVS members.

Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) is a fast-growing integrated circuit manufacturing technology. The Chemical Mechanical Polishing Users Group (CMPUG) was formed in October of 1995 to explore the advances and issues associated with this technology. The CMPUG holds monthly meetings and is open to anyone involved in CMP, including those in academia, device or equipment manufacturing, consumables, or consulting. CMPUG membership is diverse and includes IC process and equipment engineers, technicians, and sales and marketing people from suppliers. 

The Greater Silicon Valley Implant Users Group (GSVIUG) is one of the longest-running groups associated with the NCCAVS. What began as a "consumer action" group to help users interact more effectively with equipment suppliers has evolved into a working technical group composed of engineers from device manufacturers, semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and universities. The GSVIUG holds bimonthly meetings. The Group recently changed its name, as explained at www.avsusergroups.org.

Plasma etching continues to be a significant process technology in Silicon Valley, and the Plasma Etch Users Group (PEUG) continues to be one of the NCCAVS' most successful users groups. The group was formed in 1985 and became a subgroup of the NCCAVS in September of 1986. The PEUG is open to anyone involved in plasma processing, and the group's monthly meetings attract a varied audience--from those new to plasma etching to some of the founders of the industry.

The first Surface Interface Research Meeting (SIRM) was held in 1982. Since that time, the Surface/Inter-face Science Users Group has maintained the meeting as an annual event--usually held in early summer. Typically, the meeting has an all-day session with invited and contributed talks, a poster session, a mixer, and a dinner. The NCCAVS donates a prize for the best student poster paper presented at the annual meeting. The meeting was recently re-named the Nanoscience and Bio-Nanoscience Research Meeting; it took place on June 11, 2003 at LBL.

The Thin Films Users Group provides a forum for engineers from device manufacturers, equipment vendors, and university research labs to investigate new advances in equipment and thin-film processing. Monthly meetings cover topics such as deposition technologies, flat panel displays, and thin-film materials issues in device manufacturing.

The Chairs of the Section and Chapter were:

Louis A. Biagi, who was employed at what is now LBNL, recalls that “shortly after joining AVS, I attended an initial meeting with Jahn Kahn of LLNL and a few others with similar interests. This was followed by a meeting at a location in Silicon Valley for all interested parties and about 100 individuals showed up. It was decided that a formal application should be submitted to the AVS for formation of a local section, with Jahn Kahn as chair, and a committee under the direction of Bill Brunner from LLNL was formed to promote a short course program. 

 Robert Waits recalls that: 

 “I attended a second organizational meeting in Dublin, Calif. (near Livermore) on a very foggy night. However, the Chapter never was very active, sponsoring a local meeting now and then.  

So Frank Ura and others started a monthly meeting of an organization they called The Thin Film Society (TFS) of Northern California which featured a one-hour talk usually on a Thursday night starting at 8 p.m. This was preceded by an informal dinner at a local restaurant attended by the speaker and anyone else who wanted to show up– usually no more than ten or so total. The speaker was the guest of the TFS, which raised money by having an annual Vendor's “Nite” in early March each year. Active in the Thin Film Society 1975-1984 were Richard Blaydes and Francine Wright (IBM). Out-of-town speakers had their expenses paid. 

I gave a talk on thin film resistors at the Fairchild Laboratory in the late 1960s or early '70s and John Vossen gave a talk prior to 1975. In July 1977 Peter Clarke talked about the sputter gun and the cryopump, “two devices first shown in 1968.” I have flyers for most of the meetings from Jan 1975 through Sept 1984. Most of the talks from 1975 on were held in the Hewlett-Packard Santa Clara Division Auditorium. The venue switched only once  to the San Jose Hyatt House in June 1978 for a talk by Walter Class (MRC) on Post Magnetron sputter deposition of aluminum-silicon alloy films. 

Two out-of-town speakers that I remember were John Vossen (RCA), who gave a very frank discussion of process equipment deficiencies, and John Chapin (Vacuum Technology Associates, Inc., Boulder, CO).  Chapin gave a talk on PM sputtering just before his article in the Jan '74 R&D magazine came out.  Strangely, I missed the talk, but Frank Ura didn't.  He and Steve Muto started a major program on PM sputter deposition of TaAl for thermal printheads from a target of  Ta bars inlayed in aluminum.  I joined HP about that time and, with Frank's encouragement, adopted RF PM for aluminum oxide deposition on the same project, even though we had to scrap a traditional RF system that had been built for that purpose. 

In January 1978, I gave a talk on Post Magnetron sputter deposition; I had given the talk two days earlier at a meeting of the little-known Santa Rosa Vacuum Society held at Hewlett-Packard in Santa Rosa. In April 1978 Harold Kaufman (Colorado State Univ., Ft. Collins) described ion beam sources. John Coburn spoke in August 1979. In the '80s there were many hot topics which have become significant milestones. In October 1981 the TFS had an afternoon “Dry Etch Colloquium” in Naperdak Hall featuring a talk by Eric Kay and vendor's posters. The October meeting featured Ilan Blech discussing “Computer Simulation of Step Coverage by Evaporated Thin Films” of SiO and aluminum. In June 1982 George Bunyard of UTI described the “closed ion source” mass spectrometer for analyzing process gas purity. In December 1982 CVD tungsten for interconnects and contacts was discussed by Israel Beinglass (IMP, San Jose) and Nicholas Miller (Anicon, Sunnyvale). In May 1983 rapid thermal processing was described by Arnon Gat (AG Associates, Palo Alto).

The first “Thin Film Society Vendor's Nite” (i.e. the first equipment show) was held in 1967 in an Italian-run hall in Menlo Park but the event quickly grew too large for this venue and it moved to Nashville West, a local honky-tonk bar-type place in Sunnyvale. In March 1977 the 10th Vendor's Nite was moved to the Jugo-Slav Naperdak Hall in San Jose  since Nashville West had gone out of business.”

Past Events

1964

The first chair was Jhan M. Khan of Lawrence Livermore. Edmund Hillary spoke at the symposium dinner, and Mirassou wine was served; it was then a totally unknown winery in San Jose.

1965

7 May: Research Symposium at Stanford Univ; the speakers were Eric Kay (IBM) and Norm Taylor (Varian)

27 Oct: Caravan Inn,  Mountain View:  120 members attended and the  the new 35mm AVS film on “Leak Detection” was shown.

1966

6 May: 1-day symposium at Ames Research Center with 190 attendees; there were 93 at the  annual dinner.

1967

May 2: 3^rd Ann. symposium was held at Lockheed with talks by Frank Ura and Paul Redhead.

May 17: “Practical Aspects of Vacuum Technology” was an attempt at a new style of meeting where members spoke of their work; it was moderated by Tom Batzer.

1968

8 May; Fourth Annual One Day Symposium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Auditorium. The registration fee was $5 for members, and $6 for non-members. The morning session covered U .H. V. gauging and Mass Spectroscopy. Jim Lafferty, AVS President-elect was a featured speaker. Throughout the afternoon, a novel form of panel discussion, with audience participation, on surface, cryogenic, sputtering and hardware matters was held. One week before the symposium, each pre-registrant received a 20-page synopsis of the major points the 10 panelists deem worthwhile. Under control of a chairman, each panelist then expanded his position.

20 November: meeting

1969

29 January:

27 February:

25 March: 5^th Annual Symposium at Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park. It was attended by over 100 members and was opened with an address by AVS President Elect, Bill Lange. Other talks were "Regular Observation of Irregular Quadrupole Peak  Shapes" by Richard A. Hein; "Outgassing Rates of Various Gases from 304 Stainless Steel Surfaces" by Yale E. Strausser and "Important Considerations in Sublimation Pumping" by Theodore K. Tom

 Three $100 scholarships were given at San Jose College to Gary Fontana, Ruben B Perez,  and jointly to twins Guiorgio & Guido Maggiora who split the $100;the winners were selected by the Chapter Chair and a member of the college.

April 6: Urban Cummings and Norman Dean, both with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, spoke on "The Vacuum System for the Stanford Storage Ring."

June 6: annual Dinner Meeting and Ladies Night at the Golden Pavilion Restaurant on El Camino Real in Paro Alto. Dr. Thomas Poulter, Senior Scientist at Stanford Research Institute,  spoke on his current research with communication among sea mammals. His title: "Voices from  the Deep" is all the more interesting with the sound track and film sequences accompanying it.

1970

December 8: Ron Bunshah gave a talk  “Scope and Potential of High Vacuum, High rate, PVD Processes”

Donna Bakale note the lack of activity between 70 and 78. We had a meeting and decided to revitalize but focus on education and NOT be like all the other chapters with an annual meeting. Then the seminars started up. I think???

I managed the 78 one and another one related to surface analysis. They were very very well attended

1978

March 16: Seminar on “Problem Solving In Industry using surface analysis and depth profiling techniques” at Ricky’s Hyatt House, Palo Alto,  followed by dinner.

1979

1980

March 11-12,: Equipment exhibit at the Marriott, Santa Clara

1981

March 2-4: Equipment exhibit at the Marriott, Santa Clara had 600 attendees.  Courses were given and were 83% filled  with five courses being filled 5 weeks in advance.

September 22: “Vendors whose products is service” was chaired by Tom Beat 

1982

January 21: Symposium on “Plasma Processes” was chaired by Donna Bakale.

February 22: The first meeting to discuss assistance to educational institutions was attended by San Jose State (Louis Salarno) & UC Davis (Ted Hilyer); the Chapter representatives were Donna Bakale, Bill Brunner, Chuck Bryson,  Stan Goldfarb, and Bruce Raby. There was a need for functional equipment representing that in use by industry. It approved $2000 grants to both universities for books, visual aids, equipment repairs, etc.

March 1-4, LeBaron Hotel. Course program with 1 3-day, 1 2-day course on sputtering, which was taught by John Thornton and Bill Westwood, , and 8 1-day courses. The full list is given in the January 1982 issue of the AVS Newsletter; Chris Flagal chair of the course program.

April 22: annual dinner meeting at which the  Surface/Interface Science Committee was formed to foster interactions between industry, university and national labs. Although $100 had been assigned for prizes at a Science Fair on April 5, no award had been made since there was no vacuum related project. It was decided that, for the following year, a brochure would be generated for science teachers explaining the awards, suggesting projects, indicating advisors who were prepared to assist in developing projects, and a list of equipment available for loan to students.

May 13: at the Italian Gardens “Problem solving in industry using surface analysis and depth profiling techniques”

June 2: at Stanford Univ, Brian Chapman  gave a talk  “Everything one knows nothing about in the surface chemistry of semiconductor manufacturing” 

1983

January 20: 3^rd Annual Plasma Processing Symposium at the Italian Gardens

May 25: Third Surface/Interface meeting at UC Berkeley. 

1984

March 14-15; 5^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel. Course program.

November 1: An article entitled “Much ado about nothing” was published in the Tri-Valley Herald on the “Vacuum Basics for the Novice” seminar which was given by Tom Beat and Bill Brunner was re-published in the November 1984 issue of the AVS Newsletter. Apart from noting the $40 registration, there was little in the article about the seminar!

1985:

March 4: 6^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel had 850 attendees. Ten courses were given  with 288 students; Carol Foster was the course manager. Because of the high attendance, the “Basic vacuum technology” and  “System design” courses were repeated in April.

July 17: 6^th Surface/Interface Research Meeting at Xerox PARC

The Greater Silicon Valley Implant Users group was incorporated into the Chapter. A

surplus equipment exchange  was set up by Don Packwood. The Chapter’s annual cash flow exceeded $120, 000 and there was a $50,000 cash reserve.  A new exhibit “Radio Frequency Glow Discharge (Argon Candle)” was established by the Chapter at the San Francisco Exploratorium.

November 6 or 7: the Annual “Basic Vacuum for the Novice” seminar was presented Nov at the Italian Gardens; as in previous years, there were 2 parallel sessions, with one for non-technical novices  and the other for technical novices; the attendance was limited to 75.

1986

March 5-6: 7^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel had 137 vendors and 880 attendees, 22 courses were given. As Paul Luscher reported in the November 1986 issue of the AVS Newsletter, the course program would be even bigger in 1987 because the Chapter had forged a partnership with AVS on course programs, with shared risks and rewards; the courses to be offered in 1987 were listed. Paul also noted that the Surface & Interface group had 230 attendees at two 1-day symposia and the, Greater Silicon Valley Implant Users group had 70 subscribers at its meeting.

1987

March 10-12, : “Processing Limits in Microelectronics” at the Radisson Hotel, San Jose. The program was co-sponsored by the EMPD, TFD & ASSD , Dave Fraser was the Program Chair and there were 100 attendees

March 11-12: 8^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel; there were 149 vendors and 780 attendees. Over 100 attended  a Vacuum Technology Division symposium chaired by Henry Kumagai.

March 10-14: course program at Le Baron. There were 430 students for the  25 courses, which included new courses on “STM”, “Packaging in Microelectronics”, “Technology of Hard Coatings”, “Practical Analysis of storage and disk technologies”’ all the courses were listed in the  November 1987 issue of the AVS Newsletter, which also contained the annual report on activities by Dave Fraser.

June 25: Annual Business meeting and dinner at Piccolo Momdo, Los Altos was attended by 115 members and guests; a talk on “High temperature superconductivity, as easy as one, two, three” was given by Paul Grant, of IBM.

September 24: Plasma Etch Users Group meeting. The Plasma Etch users’ group report for 1987 was published in the March 1988 issue of the AVS Newsletter.

November 12: Implant Users’ group held its 2^nd annual meeting: there were 75 attendees at the Italian Gardens.

December 9: 10^th biannual Surface/Interface Meeting at Sandia Labs in Livermore. 

1988

January 28: Topical Symposium on “Thin Film Microanalytical techniques”, at Italian Gardens

March 16-17,: 9^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel, March 14-18: Course program had  480 attendees for 23 courses, which was 13% higher than in 1987.

March 18: “Advances in metallization for VLSI and ULSI devices”,

The Northern California chapter participated in the Chemathon program which was developed by Peggy Carlock, a teacher at the Albany, CA high school. She had initially developed 10 hours of experiments for a science club which grew into a large number of experiments offered at several schools on a Saturday. Anette Freitas, the Chapter education committee chair, met Peggy in 1987 and then the Chapter organized five vacuum related experiments for the 1988 Chemathon. This was described in an article by Anette and Bill Brunner in the September, 1988 issue of the Newsletter; a grant of $2500 was made to the Chemathon. An article by Carol Foster on the Chapter’s equipment donation program and education in high schools was published in  the July 1988 issue of the AVS Newsletter.

June 3: 11^th Surface/Interface research meeting at IBM Almaden.

June 26: 90 members and guests attended the annual business meeting in Berkeley which included a 4-hour cruise and dinner, as described in the November 1988 issue of the AVS Newsletter.

1989

March 6-7: Le Baron Hotel: Joint meeting with the Japanese Vacuum Industry Association and the Chinese Vacuum Society on Vacuum Technology

March 6-10: Course program (listed in Jan/Feb issue of AVS Newsletter

March 7-8: 10^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel,

June 1: Surface/Interface Research Meeting, SLAC

November 14: Greater Silicon Valley Implant Users Group meeting.

1990

March 12-16: Course program at Le Baron

March 13-14: 11^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel,

May 9: Le Baron Hotel; “Upgrading, Modifying & Rebuilding vacuum based processing systems in the semiconductor, optics, and magnetics industries”

December 6: “Detecting and characterizing extremely low level dopants and contaminants”

The Las Positas College (formerly Chabot College) was constructing the “MDC Center for Vacuum Technology” with a construction cost of $100,000. In 1987, the Chapter had sent a letter to businesses in the area asking for donations for building the lab at the Valley Campus of Chabot College in Livermore. The college had awarded an associate of arts degree in vacuum technology since 1987.

1991

March 12-14: 12^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel with 1734 attendees.

May 14: “Thin Film Issues in disk technology”

May 11-15: Course program of 30 courses at Le Baron Hotel.

June 27: 14^th Surface/Interface Research Meeting at Stanford Univ.

1992

March 12-16: 13^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel

June 19: 15^th Surface/Interface Research Meeting at UC Berkeley

1993

March 10-11: 14^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel

September 16: Bay area Plasma Etch Users Group, Le Baron

1994

March 9-10: 15^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel

March  7-11: Course program. Le Baron

1995

March 8-9: 16^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel

March 7-11: Course program, Le Baron; 27 courses offered, two of which were newly expanded; “Materials & Surface  Microcharacterization ”from “Materials Microcharacterization” & “Thin Film Deposition and Patterning techniques” from “Overview of Thin Film Deposition”.

June 23: Flat panel displays tutorial.

As discussed in the Jan/Feb 1996 issue of the AVS Newsletter, the Chapter was sponsoring two new user groups; ”Contamination Control” and “CMP”.

1996

March 10-11: 17^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition, Le Baron Hotel March 11-15: Course program, Le Baron; including 2 new courses: “Magnetic Force Microscopy: methods and Applications in Data Storage” and “Statistical Process Control in the Modern Wafer Fab”.

May 13-14: “First International Symposium on Plasma-Process Induced damage” at the Westin Santa Clara, co-sponsored y IEEE/Electron Devices and the Japan Society of Applied Physics.

Dec 9-13,: a course program with 15 courses was held in San Jose. There were 3 new courses: “Plasma Equipment Modelling and Simulation”, “Plasma Etching and RIE:CMOS applications” and “The Mysteries of IC Processing Revealed for the Non-technical Person”.

1997

March 25-26: 18^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the Red Lion Hotel, San Jose. As well as being published as usual, the annual Members/Vendors Directory was posted on the AVS web site; it listed 150 vendors.

March 24-28:  Course program at the Red Lion Hotel, San Jose. There were 30 courses of which  4 were new: “Application of RGAs in Semiconductor Processing”,  “CMP for Microelectronics Manufacturing”,  “Plasma Technologies in the Fabrication of Thin Film Transistors for Liquid Crystal Displays” and  “Understanding Optical Coatings”

1998

March 22-23: 19^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the DoubleTree Hotel (formerly the Red Lion)  in  San Jose had 200 vendors,

March 23-27: Course program at the DoubleTree Hotel: 30 courses

December 7-11: Course program at the Wyndham Hotel (formerly Le Baron), San Jose

The Chapter hosted an honorary dinner for Bill and Virginia Brunner to recognize the exceptional role which they had played in the chapter activities. Bill was a pioneer in the short course program and Virginia was in charge of the business office for many years. Bill was presented with a plaque which read “in recognition of the contributions as a founding member of the American Vacuum Society’s Short Course program and teaching from 1970 to 1997” . Bob Willis presented a plaque  which read “With Gratitude and Recognition for Exceptional Service in Education, Organization, and Management. Our Chapter owes much of its success to both of you.”

1999

March 16-17 : 20^th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the DoubleTree Hotel

March 15-18: The AVS “1^st International Conference on Advanced Materials and Processes for Electronics” was held at the DoubleTree Hotel

March 15-19: Course program at the DoubleTree Hotel

 Since 1999, the Chapter’s Education Committee has been presenting hands-on workshops for middle and high school girls. It is a feature of the annual “Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics” (EYH) conferences to encourage girls to consider careers in these fields. The first EYH conference was held in Oakland in 1976. The first Chapter workshop was held at the 1999 ETH at San Jose State University. Since then, two workshops have been held each year, at San Jose State and at the Tri-Valley in San Ramon. In 2002, they were both on the same date, but two teams from the chapter held parallel workshops. Each workshop “Life in a vacuum” lasted an hour with 12-20 students and was repeated 2-3 times during the day.  The Chapter has mechanical pumps and bell jars, as are used in the AVS Science Educators’ Workshop”, and purchased a tabletop DC magnetron sputtering system in 1999; participants can deposit gold-palladium on beads, pennies, glass and silicon.

2000

February 8-9: 21st annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the Santa Clara Convention Center

February 7-11: 1^st Int Conf on Microelectronics and Interfaces (ICMI) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This included programs by the Chapter’s User groups.

February 7-11: Course program at the Santa Clara Convention Center

2001

February 6-8: 22nd annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the Santa Clara Convention Center

February 5-9: 2nd Int Conf on Microelectronics and Interfaces (ICMI) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

February 5-9: Course program at the Santa Clara Convention Center

2002

February 12-13: 23st annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Bob Willis had managed the Exhibition for many years. Victor Chia was co-chair in 2002 and took over in 2003. Bob Willis became an AVS Honorary Member in 2001.

February 11-14: 3rd Int Conf on Microelectronics and Interfaces (ICMI) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

February 11-15: Course program at the Santa Clara Convention Center

2003

March 4-5: 24th annual Vacuum Equipment Exhibition at the Santa Clara Convention Center

March 3-6: 4th Int Conf on Microelectronics and Interfaces (ICMI) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

March 3-7: Course program at the Santa Clara Convention Center

During the past year the Education Committee of the Northern California Chapter (NCCAVS) has participated in diverse activities and events. We have organized tours of Stanford Linear Accelerator  (SLAC) and the Lawrence Berkeley Advanced Light Source (ALS) Facility and participated in several activities serving the sixth grade through high school. Along with other AVS Chapters, we will sponsor two high school science teachers’ participation in the AVS Science Educators Workshop at the AVS International Symposium in Baltimore.

This spring we awarded prizes for outstanding physical science projects at the 2003 Tri-Valley regional Science Fair and at the Synopsis Santa Clara Valley Science Fair, and our members judged at local school science fairs.

For the past three years we have presented vacuum workshops at the annual California Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Conference.  Dave Webb and Richard Osburn held the workshop at the 2002 Conference in San Francisco. This year, in conjunction with the Southern California Chapter, we will hold a workshop at the CSTA Conference in Long Beach, California, October 9–12, 2003.

Each March we participate in Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) science workshops for young women in sixth grade through high school (see the Summer 2002 AVS Newsletter). This year our participation in the EYH program was expanded to three sites. Betsy Zajac led the Tri-Valley EYH Workshop at San Ramon, Senzi Li led the San Jose State workshop, and Janice McOmber and Pamela St. John led the Skyline College Workshop. Pamela St. John, who initiated and led our EYH activities, has joined the Chemistry department at SUNY at New Paltz, and Janice McOmber has joined the Education Committee and becomes our EYH organizer.

Our Web page  offers information to science teachers who wish to perform vacuum demonstrations. These include helpful hints on routine mechanical pump maintenance, a list of vendors who offer discounted repair and maintenance services, and links to related vacuum and physical science sites. We have also posted three handouts that describe some of the EYH vacuum demonstrations and experiments. These PDF documents include a list of equipment and materials, the procedure, and supplemental information. The topics are: Is There Sound in a Vacuum?, Strange Effects in a Vacuum, and Triple Point Experiment.

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