Era 3: Section 2
1979-1990: Expansion into Microelectronics and Energy
During this era, the National Symposium continued to increase in size. The number of papers more than doubled although the attendance climbed more slowly; the attendee to paper ratio decreased from almost 7 in 1979 to about 3 in 1989; the Exhibit also doubled in size. With the increase both in attendees and space requirements, the number of possible locations decreased. Until 1984, the Symposium was usually held in a hotel but since then most have been in convention centers. With a number of concurrent oral presentation sessions, poster sessions, exhibit booths and short courses occurring simultaneously, the meeting requires a lot of space which can only be provided in convention centers.
The 1979 Symposium in New York City was well attended; there were 900 registrants with another 300 Exhibit attendees and 400 course registrants. However, the overall Symposium expense was very high although the $50 member registration fee seems very moderate. In an effort to cut costs due to the “astronomic” labor rates in New York, there were no projector operators, but this caused such major continuity problems in the sessions that they were reinstated for 1980. The printing and mailing costs for the preliminary and final program books were also very high; the preliminary program was mailed first class. The invited speaker expenses were also very high. Ed Greeley was so disappointed in the treatment of the exhibitors by the exhibit hall workers that he recommended that the AVS never hold another Symposium and Exhibit in New York City; there has not been a Symposium there since 1979. Although Ed was an AIP employee, he always had the best interests of the AVS as a top priority.
In 1980, a Symposium Expenses Committee was assigned to recommend how expenses could be minimized and controlled. Since the technical program was expected to break even, increasing costs required an increase in the symposium registration fee. The Board decided that, in future, the Program Chair, rather than the Divisions, would have full control of the program and speaker expenses. In planning for the 1981 Symposium, a limit of $250 per session for invited speakers was established. The Divisions then asked for an additional $7,350 for invited speakers but the Board decided that this would mean that the Program Chair did not control the program costs and the funds were not approved.
About 50% of the papers presented in 1979 were published in the JVST but only 50% of the invited talks appeared, even as extended abstracts. As a result, publication of at least a 1,000 word summary was to be a requirement for an invited talk in 1980, unless the Program Chair made an exception.
The 1980 Symposium was held in Detroit; the meeting rooms in the circular tower hotel were also curved and had rather low ceilings, which was especially difficult because the sessions were very well attended! There was also a shortage of space; one poster session was held at 8:00 p.m., the Exhibit was sold out and and no New Products Seminar was held, and 150 course registrants could not be accommodated. Groups from the International Conference on Fusion had asked to participate and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers held a joint session with the Vacuum Technology Division.
The 1981 Symposium was held in the Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim; it was the last one totally run by the volunteers, the new Meetings Manager was hired just before the event. Joe Davis chaired the Local Arrangements Committee, which had eleven members in total, and made all the arrangements with the hotel, including signing the contract for the space. The Program Committee, which was chaired by Bill Westwood, had twenty-eight members; each of the eight divisions were limited to three members. The Symposium ran from Tuesday through Friday with five or six parallel sessions, including poster sessions on Wednesday and Thursday.
The organization of the program went electronic for the first time, thanks to the Assistant Program Chair, Frank Shepherd. This was decided during a car ride from Detroit to Ottawa following the 1980 program selection meeting where Bill and Frank had just observed John Thornton, the 1980 Program Chair, and Joy Thornton, arrange the 1980 program by moving yellow sticky labels from session to session. Frank decided this should be possible on a computer and he located within Bell Northern Research a relational data base computer program (GERM) which could be used. As abstracts were received, each one was typed into a word processor by a very efficient secretary, Marylou Myles, and acknowledgement letters automatically generated. The abstracts submitted for each division program were identified and “abstract books” mailed out to the division program members. The Program Committee then met at the Disneyland Hotel to construct the program. Ted Madey, who was President that year, also attended. Joint sessions were held for the first time; SSD and TFD shared a session on “The Effect of Ion Beams on Surfaces” and VTD and the new Fusion Technology Division held one on “Large Vacuum Vessels.” Frank was then able to assemble the program electronically and send it to the printing house in Ottawa, and print letters to the authors advising them of their place in the program, all within two days. Despite much preparatory work, the printer made a mistake and the Preliminary Program book had to be reprinted, at the printer’s expense. The programs had to be mailed from Ogdensburg, N.Y. in envelopes imprinted with the permit number. To meet the mailing schedule, Bill drove a van from Ottawa to Ogdensburg while his daughter and Frank were in the back applying mailing labels to the envelopes. On reaching Ogdensburg, they were informed that the envelopes had to be sorted by zip code before they could be accepted. The post office supplied the space to do this; since it was Friday afternoon, there was not much other activity. The mailing deadline was met, just in time!
An international incident almost arose when authors from the Peoples Republic of China objected to the inclusion of a paper from Taiwan in the program because Taiwan was not identified as being part of China, and they threatened to withdraw all nine of their papers, which would have been a serious blow to the growth of the international participation. However, Bill sent them copies of a letter from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs stating that this was the correct usage and they fortunately did not withdraw. In fact, at the end of the Symposium, two of them sought out Bill to give him a small gift!
There were finally 395 papers presented in 48 sessions at the Symposium; another 19 withdrew, including 3 invited speakers; their names were added to the “black list” to avoid future invitations! As well as the Awards Lunch, there was a series of lectures at lunch time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Society for Physics Students (SPS). The Exhibit was also very successful with more exhibitors than expected. Each morning, there was a moderators’ breakfast meeting of all the session chairs for the day to brief them on activities and to remind them of their duties, such as keeping the session on schedule and ensuring that the audience could hear the questions. Judging by the performance of some moderators at later symposia, these breakfasts were a good idea! Gini Whetten organized the Companions Program for the first time in 1981 and continued to do so for twenty years. Initially, there was no fee for this program although there were expenses, and many of the companions also attended the reception. The AVS run was held for the first time. Larry Kazmerski, who has organized the run since the beginning, initially proposed a 10 kilometer run but halved the distance so that it could be held within the Disneyland property. Many participants over the years were probably very thankful for this!
The use of a computer for handling the abstracts and associated correspondence for the Symposium worked well in 1981 using the internal computer and software capability of the Program Chair's employer. All the submissions were tracked electronically and various types of standard letters were generated automatically. Unfortunately, the Program Chairs who followed did not have access to software with this capability and much of the work reverted to being done manually, which placed an increasing burden on the Chair as the number of papers increased. Although various computer systems were used in the next few years, a standard system for handling abstracts was not fully established until AVS hosted the International Vacuum Congress in 1986.
The very large growth in the Symposium was already a concern in 1981, but the Board specifically disapproved holding two national symposia in a given year, out of concern for the loss of synergism between the diverse groups within the Society. The LRPC recommended that adding a fifth day and more parallel sessions to the Symposium would allow a 10% annual growth in the number of papers within the space available in the locations already selected.
The 1982 Symposium was held in the new and highly regarded Baltimore Convention Center. Washington had originally been selected as the site but, in 1980, it was decided to relocate because of the extra space required as the Symposium grew. Scientific Attaches from 26 embassies in Washington were invited to attend. The printing and mailing of the programs was now handled by the New York office, relieving the Program Chair of a purely administrative task. The number of papers was 6.6% higher than in 1981 even though the abstract rejection rate was 27%. To accommodate sixteen more talks, the morning sessions started at 8:20 a.m., even on the morning of the AVS run! However, there was no complaint from the run organizer to the Program Chair since Larry Kazmerski filled both positions! Considerable effort was made to increase the acceptance of the poster sessions which were subdivided into 45 minute segments; five presenters each gave a three minute summary of their paper and there was then a thirty minute period for discussions at the posters; the last hour of the session was for general viewing and refreshments were served. However, the New Products seminar was held in two sessions in preference to a poster session, which had not been popular with the Exhibitors. The Moderators’ breakfast was enlarged to include all the presenters for the day as well as the moderators. The Exhibit was exceptionally successful with 195 booths and a large attendance. However, an experiment to extend the Exhibit hours by opening at 8:00 a.m. was definitely not a success and has never been repeated! The Vacuum Education Training session, which had been initiated in 1981, was again poorly attended and was discontinued thereafter.
The increasing costs were again a concern and a Symposium Accounting Procedures Committee recommended that, starting in 1983, all costs incurred at the Symposium should be charged to the appropriate committee; i.e. if a committee chair arranged for a dinner meeting, then the cost would appear in the committee expenses, not as a Symposium expense. The intent was to make people aware of the costs involved in each activity.
For the 1983 symposium in Boston, the original Assistant Program Chair, Dick Kellerman, resigned early in the year when he started a private business and his place was taken by Mike Slade, who became particularly involved with the computer aspects of the Symposium. The abstract rejection rate of 14% was much lower than for previous meetings and the increased number of papers meant more parallel sessions; for the first time, a Division, Surface Science, ran two parallel sessions. The format of short oral presentations in the poster sessions did not work well because of the noise level and this format has not been used again.
The 1984 Symposium was in Reno. It was originally planned for the new Moscone Center in San Francisco, which was due to be completed in 1982. However, in 1980, the location became questionable because there were no adjacent hotels and the five block walk to hotels was considered to be quite dangerous after dark. There was no other location in San Francisco large enough and Howard Patton suggested Reno. This was approved early in 1981 despite some concern about travel to Reno in early December; however, Howard had determined from weather records that it had never snowed in Reno that week and this fortunately held true in 1984! The Symposium was held in the MGM Grand Hotel where the casino had its lowest ever weekly revenue; AVS attendees are clearly not gamblers! The result was that no other similar site, such as Las Vegas, will consider having an AVS symposium! The facilities in the MGM for the vendor exhibit were rather inadequate and booths were squeezed into spaces in three different locations in the hotel. Although attendance at the technical program was normal, there were only 150 exhibit only attendees, compared with almost 1,000 in Boston the year before, which was not surprising in Reno.
The informal mixer, which was first held in 1973, was revived on a much-expanded scale in Reno, with an orchestra and a substantial buffet. It replaced a much smaller function, the President’s Reception, which had been limited to those involved in Society management, foreign visitors, and other guests. The 1984 LAC Chair, Howard Patton, considered these affairs to be elitist and decided to open the reception to all attendees. To cover the increased expense of the larger gathering, the event was co-sponsored by the Independent Vacuum Equipment Representatives (IVER), who covered 40% of the cost; the other 60% came from the usual budget for the President’s reception and from the Northern California Chapter. In addition the Chapter made a donation to the University of Nevada music department which provided music during the event. The function was a great success with around 1,500 attending and has been held each year since then. The Board decided that future receptions should be wholly funded from the symposium budget, rather than involve external support.
The 1985 Symposium was held in Houston but this was another case where the symposium had outgrown the space which had been selected seven years earlier. It was recognized in 1981 that there was insufficient space in the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, Although the Texas Chapter representatives felt that it could be handled by locating the exhibit in a separate facility, this was not acceptable to the exhibitors. However, the Board did want to retain a Texas site and in 1983 selected the Houston Convention Center, although it would require erection of plywood walls to provide suitable space for sessions and there would be additional decorating costs. The registration fee was increased substantially from 1984, making it comparable to other conferences; it was $140 for members and $190 for non-members, the difference being the membership dues of $50.
In 1980, IUVSTA had decided to hold the 1986 International Vacuum Congress jointly with the AVS Symposium, as had been done in 1971. The 1986 Symposium was scheduled for Atlanta but there were concerns that the space in Atlanta was totally inadequate to house the combination of the growing Symposium and the Congress. In 1982, it was decided to hold the joint AVS/IUVSTA meeting in Baltimore and the 1988 Symposium in Atlanta. In 1983, Len Beavis was appointed the General Chair for the joint 1986 meeting. One major consideration for the “computerization” of the AVS office was to prepare for the very large increase in the number of abstracts expected for the joint National Symposium/ International Vacuum Congress (IVC-10) and the International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-6). The size of that meeting turned out to be fully as large as had been expected, and the new system for handling the abstracts was most effective. Over 1,000 abstracts were submitted, with 11% of them for the newly formed Applied Surface Science Division program. The meeting lasted four and a half days and there were 860 papers of which 250 were poster presentations; 46% of the attendees were from the US. The registration fee of $240 was again much higher than in 1985 but this was necessary because of the higher costs; about half the fee was to pay for the proceedings which were published in the JVST.
It is interesting to compare some statistics for this joint AVS/IUVSTA meeting in 1986 with those for the previous one held fifteen years earlier in Boston. The number of papers accepted for presentation, including invited papers, was 860 as compared to 318; the rejection rate was about 13% compared to 20%. About 44% of the papers were from outside North America, quite close to the 40% in 1971. Approximately one third of the papers were presented in poster sessions, an innovation not in place in 1971. However, 36 authors did not appear to present their papers, including three invited speakers; in 1971, the authors of only five contributed papers failed to show up.
By 1983, it was evident that the space at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego would not be adequate for the 1987 Symposium. Marion Churchill had dinner with the Town and Country manager to try to have the contract cancelled; before the dessert, he was almost pleading with her to allow him to cancel it! In 1984, the Anaheim Convention Center and Hilton Hotel were selected for the 1987 Symposium; the sessions were held in the hotel and the Exhibit in the convention center, with a 2-3 minute walk between them. Two Nobel prizewinners, Heinrich Rohrer and Yuan Lee, gave special talks at this Symposium, which ran Monday-Thursday rather than Tuesday-Friday, as had been the case before 1986. However, a topical conference on “High Temperature Superconducting Thin Films” was held on the Friday; this was a “hot” topic at that time and there were 283 attendees for 10 invited speakers and 58 posters. A topical conference on “Deposition & Growth: Limits for Microelectronics” was also held.
The 1988 Symposium in Atlanta was run in parallel with the APS Laser Spectroscopy Conference. Three topical conferences were also held; ”Thin Film Processing and Characterization of High Temperature Superconductors”, “Nanoscale Properties of Surfaces and Interfaces,” and “Selected Area Processing” which had a joint session with the Laser Spectroscopy Conference. Sessions were actually held in two hotels across the street from each other. A standard procedure for registration fee waivers and travel support for invited speakers was introduced; the fee was waived for university staff, speakers from Europe received an additional $200 travel support and those from Asia received $300. Invited posters were a novel idea which was not repeated! The first lunchtime tutorial lecture, which was on high temperature superconductors, was held. So few people used 35mm slides. that it was suggested that there was no need for these projectors in future. This was only a six years after consideration had been given to requiring 35mm slides because there were so many complaints of “miserable” viewgraphs! The reception, which had been started in 1984, now immediately followed the new Awards Assembly on Tuesday evening. There were 290 booths in the exhibit, which was held on two floors of the hotel.
In 1981, Phoenix was selected as the site for the1989 Symposium in the expectation that new hotels would be built near the convention centre in the interim but, by 1986, it became apparent that this would not happen and there would be a half hour bus ride to available hotels. This was unacceptable and the 1989 Symposium was moved to Boston. Because of the space available in Boston, the program was very large; there were 859 papers of which 112 were invited; the rejection rate was only 4%, the lowest ever, although the rate had steadily decreased over the years. In addition, three topical conferences were held on the Monday before the symposium so that 877 papers were presented during the week. There was considerable discussion as to whether the quality of the papers had suffered because of the lower rejection rate and whether the increasing number of parallel sessions was beneficial. During the Symposium, R&D Magazine published a “Show Daily” which listed the main events of the day and highlighted some of the papers. The equipment exhibit was also large with 163 companies and 356 booths, which was 42 more than in 1988. There were also three lunchtime lectures on STM, Cosmology and HDTV and an evening presentation by James Burke, who was the host of the science series “Connections” which was made by the BBC and shown on PBS in the USA; nobody has ever fitted so many words into a lecture as he did! The exhibitors once again expressed their displeasure at the competition they felt from poster sessions and they suggested that the New Products session be held in the exhibit area, which was done the following year in Toronto. The Board decided that there should be no functions at lunchtime to allow people to attend the exhibit, which is an important element of the Symposium. Publishers had requested booth space but were rejected due to a concern that the 501.[c].(3) tax status would be in jeopardy if the publishers took orders for books during the exhibit. However, since all exhibitors sign an agreement that they will not take orders during the Exhibit, publishers have since become regular exhibitors. The fire alarm in the Hynes Auditorium went off during the Tuesday sessions, causing an evacuation and a short delay in the sessions. However, none of the exhibitors left the show and claimed that nobody heard the alarm due to the noise in the hall!
After the 1989 Symposium, the Program Chair, Fred Dylla, compared the statistics for the meetings during this era. Although the attendance increased from 1,100 in 1981 to 1,600 in 1989, the ratio of attendees to papers decreased from 2.5 to 1.9 from 1979 to 1989. The increase in attendance was partly due to the increase in the number of student registrations from 91 to 382. However, the income from student registrations was very low and the Symposium was now running at a loss. The fraction of presentations which were published as full papers in JVST was about 0.5 in both 1979 and 1989.
It was realized during 1989 that no contract had ever been completed with AIP for the management of the Exhibit. Obviously, the arrangement had been satisfactory! The management fee to AIP had been 25% of gross revenue but AIP also offered an alternative which was 20% of the net income from the Exhibit. In 1990, a new letter of agreement was concluded using the 20% figure.
In 1985, Toronto had been selected for the 1990 Symposium but the issue was raised that US government labs considered travel to Canada as foreign travel, which would seriously affect attendance. However, it was shortly verified that the Department of Energy did not consider Canada as foreign travel. At the Exhibitors’ breakfast in 1989, a Toronto customs broker was present to answer questions on shipping equipment to the 1990 Exhibit; a special arrangement had been made for customs clearance if proper procedure was followed and Exhibitors were sent shipping instructions. Only a few companies failed to follow the guidelines and, unfortunately, some of them did experience difficulties with customs clearance. Over 400,000 pounds of freight was shipped through customs by 193 companies for the 343 booths in the Exhibit. Because the Monday of the Symposium week was the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, a “meet & greet” booth was provided at Toronto airport. The number of papers was kept the same as in 1989, increasing the rejection rate from 4 to 11.5%, in an effort to improve quality. Four topical conferences were part of the week’s program and a lunchtime talk was given by a Nobel prize winner, John Polanyi. There were several requests for VCRs, beginning a new era in conference presentations. The presenters’ breakfast was again poorly attended and it was recommended that the breakfast be restricted to moderators in future. For the poster sessions, which were very well attended, two tickets for beer and wine were provided each day but a cash bar was also available; this was one of the measures taken to control costs. There were also no automatic fee waivers for invited speakers. The LAC Chair, Frank Shepherd, provided a consolidated budget spreadsheet for all Symposium expenses; he originally estimated a deficit of $126,000 but the actual deficit was $38,000, slightly lower than that for the previous year. An innovation at this Symposium was Science Educators’ Day, which is discussed under Education and has been a permanent feature at the Symposium since then. To reduce costs, students were used as monitors but were less than satisfactory because of scheduling and training difficulties; students were not used in 1991. The Symposium was, however, a success; there were so many attendees that the supply of final programs handed out at registration was exhausted, all the hotels were fully booked and the poster sessions were jammed.
The layout of the program book also changed with the increasing number of papers. In 1979, the papers were listed by division; i.e. the morning and afternoon sessions for the Thin Film Division were on facing pages with a similar layout for the other divisions. This was inconvenient since one had to flip pages to see all the papers in parallel sessions. In 1980, all the sessions for the morning or afternoon were on facing pages so that one could scan all the papers being given at the same time. This same basic layout has been used ever since although, with the increase in the number of parallel sessions, they could not all fit on two facing pages and still be readable! In 1985, there were eight parallel session plus a topical conference and by 1989, there were nine parallel sessions. In 1979, a 8.5x11 inch format was used for the first time and has been retained since then. A Symposium logo was used for the first time in Philadelphia in 1975; it combined the current AVS logo with the Liberty Bell. The Chicago skyline was used in 1976 and a sailing ship represented Boston in 1977. In 1978, the Magdeburg hemispheres logo was featured by Ed Sickafus on the program cover; this design was then adopted as the AVS logo. A “big apple” logo, was used for the New York Symposium, but appeared on an inside page. Since 1980, when the towers of the Detroit hotel was used, the Symposium logo has been featured on the cover of the program. The 1980 book was also spiral bound so that it could be folded for ease of use. The same format was used in 1981 but the AVS logo was incorporated into the logo featuring the Disneyland monorail and hotel. In 1982, the AVS logo was incorporated in the sails of a sailing ship which was within a “B” for Baltimore. For the 1983 symposium in Boston, the logo featured a patriot on horseback with a steeple background; the AVS logo was separate and the “30th Anniversary” was featured. For Reno in 1984, the AVS logo floated in the sky above jagged mountain peaks but it went even higher for Houston in 1985 with a cowboy riding the space shuttle! The pattern was interrupted in 1986 for the joint AVS/IUVSTA meeting; the cover featured the logos of the two organizations and color print was used for the first time. The Disneyland castle was the 1987 logo and the AVS logo was separate. For Atlanta in 1988, the AVS logo was superimposed on a peach and the logo for the 1989 symposium appeared on the back cover, for the first time; the LAC for 1989 was obviously well organized! This was repeated in subsequent years.
Topical Conferences
The Board had decided in 1982 that there should be only one National Symposium each year but, in 1985, the LRPC suggested that a number of topical conferences be combined to form a spring symposium, and that, since the Division program chairs for 1986 had no function in the AVS/IUVSTA program selection, that they be charged with organizing topical conferences for a spring meeting in 1987. Two topical conferences were held in conjunction with the Short Course Program and annual vendor exhibit of the Northern California Chapter in the spring of 1987 but attendance at these topical conferences was poor and the experiment was not repeated till 2000.
To provide for expansion of technical programs separate from the Symposium, an increase in the number of topical conferences was specifically encouraged. Until this time many conferences had been sponsored or co-sponsored by the Society, though never under the specific designation of “topical.” The first meeting to be scheduled with such a designation, a “Topical Symposium on Sputtering” sponsored by the Thin Film Division, was held in April 1984, immediately preceding the Vacuum Metallurgy Division’s 11th International Metallurgical Coatings Conference in San Diego. Although the VMD executive committee initially saw the conference as competing with the ICMC, they gave their support after a persuasive presentation by John Thornton. This topical conference brought together people interested in sputter deposition methods for both microelectronics and metallurgical applications with some of the scientific community and was a great success.
The first topical conference held in parallel with the Symposium was organized by the Electronic Materials and Processing Division in 1985. A topical conference was defined as one with a well defined topic and aimed at an attendance of about one hundred. Jerry Woodall suggested that the addition of these to the Symposium would be a means of attracting both new topics and a new audience to AVS. The Topical Conference Committee was formed in 1986 and a booklet on how to organize a topical conference was prepared. The major concerns were to avoid excessive overlap, to match the number of conferences to the perceived needs of the scientific community, and to stay within the available resources of the Society. Now, the committee reviews requests for endorsement or sponsorship of conferences by AVS and determines whether the proceedings should be published in JVST. Endorsement means that AVS has no financial involvement or commitment but advertises the conference; sponsorship implies some financial commitment.
Three topical conferences and one workshop were scheduled around the Baltimore IUVSTA Congress/AVS symposium and this arrangement has continued since then. Two of the topical symposia at the Atlanta symposium were videotaped, as was a 1989 workshop. The taping of a meeting in real time was done at relatively low cost. Since there is no recourse to re-taping any sections, it provides an accurate record of the proceedings and makes it available to those who could not attend an actual presentation, However, there was little demand for the video tapes and the program was not continued.
Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology
Both the status and size of the JVST had grown considerably during the 1970’s and further growth was expected as a result of the increased interest in surface science and microelectronics. However, the Editor, Peter Mark, died in 1979. During his illness, the editorial assistant, Carole Field, had managed to maintain the operation with the assistance of John Vossen. Gerry Lucovsky, who had just moved to North Carolina State University, agreed to help with the publication of the 1979 AVS National Symposium issue and, in the fall of 1979, was nominated as JVST Editor. He assumed the position on January 1, 1980, and still holds it.
Much of the expansion in Era 2 had resulted from the growth in surface science. The formation of the Electronic Materials and Processing Division in 1978 now positioned the JVST for accelerated growth in the first decade of Gerry Lucovsky’s tenure. The EMPD identified the AVS as an institutional player in this important arena of technology growth within the United States and also on a worldwide basis. Indeed, this has been one of the dominant factors in the internationalization of the AVS and the JVST that began in the 1980's and is still in progress today. In parallel, there was an additional new AVS/JVST thrust with the formation of the Fusion Technology Division in 1980, and its morphosis into the Plasma Science and Technology Division in 1987.
In 1982, the Comments section of JVST was split into to sections: Brief Reports and Comments, and Rapid Communications. The Shop Notes section was retained.
The most significant event during this era occurred in 1983 with the splitting of the journal into JVST A-Vacuum, Surfaces and Films, and JVST B, Microelectronics - Processing and Phenomena. The decision to expand into two components grew out of discussions in 1982 between Gerry Lucovsky and Charlie Duke, who was then chairman of the Publications Committee. This action, as boldly displayed on the cover page of JVST B, stated that the AVS and JVST were making a significant commitment to all aspects of microelectronics. This fission also initiated a new numbering system; the last issue of the first JVST series which began in 1964 was Volume 21. The new series began in 1983 with volume 1 of both JVST A and B; there were four issues of each but this increased to six in 1985.
Gerry Lucovsky became Editor-in-Chief of the JVST, as well as Editor of JVST A, and Tom Mayer, who was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, became Editor of JVST B. The proceeding of the National Symposium were published in JVST A. As well as a JVST Editorial Board to provide oversight and advice for the JVST as a whole, JVST A and JVST B each had six Associate Editors, appointed for three years; they represented the specific disciplines contributing to the research papers published. The color of the JVST B cover was changed in 1985 to crimson with JVST A remaining blue. When Gerry took over as Editor in 1980, computer files replaced slips of paper as the mechanism of tracking paper submissions, reviews and publication. The first computer was a Radio Shack TRS 80 Model 2, with external 8-inch floppy disk drives. This was the first of many steps that have brought the JVST into the computer and information age. Tom Mayer played a key role in updating both software and hardware during this era. This included the development of a referee database that is updated periodically to match changes in the vision of the AVS and JVST.
The decision to form JVST A and JVST B to focus on complementary aspects of vacuum science and technology served as a catalyst in broadening the scope of the AVS, and the special role it would play in microelectronic materials and processing. For example, JVST A and JVST B emerged as the preferred journals for all aspects of dry processing, with more fundamental papers on plasma-assisted etching, plasma processing modeling and diagnostics appearing in JVST A, and those with predominantly a microelectronics technology focus in JVST B. During this same period, and primarily because of the statement made by JVST B, internationalization began in earnest. This has continued to the point where the number of international pages published in JVST is greater than the number of pages from US authors. In 1990, changes to JVST B were made to acknowledge the emergence of nanoscale science and technology; the sub-title was changed to “Microelectronics & Nanometer Structures Processing, Measurement and Phenomena”.
One of the publication goals for the National Symposium proceedings issue was completeness. To represent all the papers which were presented, 200 word abstracts were published if a completed and acceptable paper was not submitted. This was ended in 1980, since it was not in the spirit of an archival scholarly journal; only refereed contributed and invited papers were published in JVST. By this time the reputation of the Symposium was sufficiently firmly established that the demands of quality archival publications overrode all other considerations and the Proceedings of the 1979 Symposium do not include these abstracts; instead a summary abstract format was introduced. These were terminated, in turn, by the time the Proceedings of the 1988 Symposium were published in 1989 because they did not receive enough citations to warrant their publication. The combined effect of these two editorial policy changes in the 1980's meant that approximately 60-70% of the presented papers were published in the JVST.
In 1983, there were already concerns about the publication of the proceedings of the 1986 joint AVS Symposium and IUVSTA Congress. It was estimated to require 3600 pages which, at that time, was equal to the total number of pages in JVST A & B combined! The previous IUVSTA Congresses had not been published in archival journals; in 1977 and 1980 all the papers were published as bound proceedings while in 1983 only invited papers were published. Publication of this number of pages would require a special issue of JVST and the costs would have to be partially offset by the conference registration fee. Because of the increased size of JVST due to the 1986 Congress, the 1987 subscription fee was raised to $575 from $400, with a $30 increment for foreign mailing; the reason for the large increase was explained to the subscribers and the rate was reduced to $505 for 1988.
The JVST was also important part of the implementation of topical conferences into the National Symposium format. The objective was to bring new groups into the AVS culture, and to prepare them for eventual Divisional status. Such groups have included applied surface science, manufacturing science, nanostructures, and bio-interfaces. The first topical conference held as part of the Symposium, Frontiers in Electronics Materials and Processing, was published in the AIP/AVS Conference Proceedings series, which was initiated in 1986 as a means of relieving the load on JVST and providing a more rapid means of publishing conference proceedings. These had a red on black cover design but the initial publication was delayed by a shortage of binding cloth! The papers were submitted in camera ready form but were refereed in the same way as for JVST; in fact, there was some discussion on how to decide where papers should be published. AVS received 10% of the total sales, which was about $8,000 in 1989. While the policy was that all topical conferences be published in the AIP/AVS Conference Series, this was not the case for the 1990 Symposium. The chairs of the topical conferences stated that they had understood that the papers would be published in JVST and had so informed the speakers. The Board approved this exception to the policy and they were indeed published in JVST. Since then, topical conferences have been published in the JVST A, in the same issue as the National Symposium, and the AIP/AVS Series ceased.
During this era of expansion, the JVST office moved from North Carolina State University, to the Research Triangle Institute, and then to the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. Becky Gates was editorial supervisor until 1988 when she and her family moved away from the area. She was replaced by Becky York, who holds this position at the present time. JVST now has offices in a commercial site that is also located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
In 1988, H. Barschall wrote an article in Physics Today on the effectiveness of scientific journals; JVST was in the top 22% of the 149 physics related journals. This article provoked a lawsuit by Gordon & Breech against AIP which was not finally settled, in AIP’s favor, until 2001!
During the 1980's, the total number of pages published in the JVST increased more than three-fold. More importantly, the number of pages published as contributed papers, including reviews, increased by more than a factor of four indicating a healthier balance between contributed and symposium papers; the National Symposium accounted for about one third of the pages published. A remaining editorial goal was to increase the fraction of contributed papers to the point that it was the major fraction of pages published. This was realized in the next era.
Surface Science Spectra
A new type of publication was initiated by the efforts of an ad hoc committee which was formed during the 1987 Symposium. The committee’s focus was on the needs of the applied surface science community for a comprehensive atlas of reference spectra. In 1988 the Applied Surface Science Division (ASSD), which had been formed in 1985, sponsored the creation of a surface science spectral database. Input from the surface science community was solicited through surveys, joint ASSD/American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) workshops and ASTM task groups. On the international level, a VAMAS Surface Analysis Task Group effort (Project 24) was established.
A proposal was made to the Board by Ron Lee, the ASSD Database Committee chair, in late 1989, for initial start-up funds of $31,500 for hardware and software to prepare for the publication of a journal through AIP which was projected to have 1,200 pages annually with a page cost of $49. However, the ultimate aim was an electronic version which would provide an archived database of surface spectra. It was proposed to have two co-editors who were each to be paid annual honoraria of $15,000, which was considerably higher than the honoraria paid to the JVST editors. The projected total fixed cost of the journal was $112,000 after the $99,500 start-up cost. It was estimated that there would initially be 300 subscribers and this would increase to 1000. At least 400 data entries were expected in the first year, with increasing numbers later. With a subscription fee of $750, AIP had projected that the publication could be profitable in its first year. The initial funds were to establish a data translation center at Surface/Interface Inc. in California. Although there were doubts raised by several members, the Board approved the start up funds. In early 1989, an Elsevier representative informed the Board that they would offer an alternative proposal but they did not follow up with any cost figures. The Database Committee recommended that Gary McGuire and Chuck Bryson be appointed co-editors.
In 1990, AIP suggested that the publication be in the form of a hardcover book rather than a journal because it might be difficult to obtain the spectra in a timely fashion to maintain a journal publication schedule. However, the Committee preferred the journal and proposed the name Surface Science Spectra. Lee proposed a contract with Ruth Chaney who would run the Data Center on her own computer, thus reducing the initial cost. However, Ruth left the USA before an arrangement was made and Mike Hecht undertook the function, provided the necessary computer was provided. Lee noted that the worst case scenario was that the journal would have a cumulative deficit of $350,000 by 1995 but the more likely projection was for an expenditure of $300,000 by the end of 1992 and a recovery of this investment by 1994, with a profitable operation thereafter, The Board requested a business plan which would be reviewed at a special meeting in August, 1990; it is the only Board meeting which was devoted to a single topic.
At that meeting, it was evident that a commitment of more than $200,000 would be required to determine whether the journal could reach the required subscription level. There was a wide difference of views ranging from agreement with the projected growth to “nobody will be interested because their data was proprietary” and the Board committed $15,000 for a market report to determine a realistic number of subscriptions. In October, 1990, the Laird-Durham report established benchmarks for the journal which would define whether it would be accepted; 150 data records should be received by June 30, 1991 and 100 subscriptions reached by 30 June, 1992. The business plan projected a steady-state of 750 subscriptions and publication of four issues per year, each containing 400 pages.
The new AVS publication, Surface Science Spectra, was approved in 1990 by the Board, after lengthy discussions, on a trial basis for two years. The Database Committee was responsible for the publication. A new publication would normally have oversight by the Publications Committee but SSS was envisaged as a fully electronic “journal”, although printed copies would be offered in the beginning.
Ron Lee’s personal recollections of the genesis and early development of SSS were presented fairly concisely in the Foreword to Volume 1, Number 1. Ron also recalls that the North Holland Publishing Co. (now Elsevier) tried very hard to persuade the AVS to allow them to publish SSS as a companion journal to their existing Surface Science and Applied Surface Science journals. After almost a year of negotiation on how North Holland would establish and maintain a public image of the journal as an AVS publication and means by which AVS would exercise control of the intellectual content, the discussions were terminated without resolution. Besides Ron Lee, John Noonan was heavily involved in these negotiations both as a Director and former chair of the Publications Committee.
Newsletter
The Newsletter masthead had changed slightly with the first issue of 1978 when J. Lyn Provo took over as editor; the May, 1979 issue masthead included the new Magdeburg hemisphere logo, which had just been approved by the Board. The appearance changed in 1986 with the front page highlighted in blue, new lower case font for “newsletter,” and a cleaner look due to typesetting. The general content was, of course, similar but it provided more items and photographs as the Era progressed. The report of the Society Services Committee in 1979 listed items which should be included; a report by the outgoing president, reports on Board and Committee meetings and activities, annual reports by Chapters and Divisions, notices of meetings, educational courses, situations vacant, and a calendar of events.
During this period, the Newsletter usually had 16 or 24 pages, although much of space was occupied by repetition of information on conferences in each issue. After a readership survey in 1990, this repetition was stopped, the calendar was printed on detachable pages, and the membership application form was printed only once each year. There was a request for a review of relevant books and for technical notes, but this was considered beyond the resources of the Newsletter.
In 1984, several issues were referred to a Newsletter Committee for discussion; publicizing courses and conferences which might be in competition with AVS events, advertising by head hunters, and the use of first class mail so that industrial operations would deliver the Newsletter internally. The cost of the Newsletter in 1987 was $16 per member, which was a substantial fraction of the membership dues; 40% of this cost was for first class mail.
In 1989, Donna Bakale became co-editor with Lyn Provo and the power of desktop publishing gave the Newsletter a new appearance, which was designed by Ann Weston of Technical Marketing. The objective was a more readable format. It used green as a feature color, which then was changed every year, and small caricatures appeared inside! There was a table of contents and three columns per page on the inside pages, rather than two. The first announcement of a meeting gave extensive information but were then summarized as “Meetings reminders” in subsequent Newsletters, conserving space. The people profiles were introduced, aiming at two people per issue; John Coburn and Paul Holloway were the first subjects. Issues of science policy were now included with a list of relevant Washington meetings. Starting with the last issue in 1989, Lyn Provo assembled the content and the Newsletter was then formatted for impact by S. Kelly, the “managing editor,” under the direction of Donna Bakale. All the Newsletters since 1990 are available on the web site.
The July, 1979 Newsletter announced that “Physics News in 1978” was available to members for $1 from AIP. In 1979, three contributions were submitted by AVS to Physics News; these were on Semiconductor Interface Structure, Electron Energy Loss Spectrometry and Plasma Processing. In 1980, the two AVS contributions were not published because they were submitted late and in the wrong format for AIP. Three contributions were made in 1981 and two in 1982 but Jack Rowe and John Arthur noted that dealing with the AIP Editor was a very frustrating experience! As a result, there were no volunteers for contributions in 1983!
During 1978, the Society Services Committee had considered the possibility of producing an equipment listing, which was considered by members to have great value. However, the costs were very high and a solution was provided by Cliff Mossbacher, through R&D Magazine which already planned to publish a directory in one of its issues; he undertook to provide any member with a copy on request. Of course, many members were already on the magazine’s mailing list. The AVS Buyers Guide did not appear until Era 4.
Several monographs were published by the Education Committee during the 1980s; they were sold for $5 each. One of these, published in 1980, was a “Dictionary of Terms” relevant to the areas of interest of Society members. It is a measure of the rapid development of the technology in these fields that it was no longer offered for sale in the next era because it was outdated. Another monograph, on Diffusion Pumps, which was published in 1983 is, however, still as relevant as it was then. In 1987, Pramod Karulkar & John C. Monson’s literature survey “Bibliography on Silicides” was completed; it was available as an ASCII file on three IBM floppy discs. A monograph “An Elementary Introduction to Vacuum Technology” by G. Lewin was also completed in 1987. Since no new authors had volunteered for some time, the previous policy of not paying an honorarium to authors of monographs was reversed in 1981; it was decided that an honorarium of $1000 should be paid to encourage the writing of new monographs! Since monographs were tutorial in nature, an author did not receive any professional benefit whereas the previous policy assumed that a monograph had the same standing as a book.
In 1986, the Education Committee organized a booth in the registration area at the Baltimore Symposium to sell monographs and video tapes. Since it was a great success, it was expanded in 1987 and has been a fixture at the Symposium.
The Education Committee pioneered the use of video taped courses in the society. These were based upon the short courses being offered at the time and were taped at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, which already had established such a program. The motivation was to make the courses available to people who were not able to attend in person and to provide a base for university courses in these topics. It was initially proposed in 1980 by Howard Patton and Hal Whitlow that three or four courses be taped each year, but this proved to be too ambitious because significant preparation was needed to prepare an existing course for video. It was found that taping the course with a live audience was unsatisfactory because of the rigid format and timing. The visual aids had to be on 11x18 inch sheet with a blank top left quadrant, where the instructor’s image appeared on screen, During the taping, the presenter sat on a stool behind a bench on which he placed these large sheets at the appropriate time and talked to the video camera, while keeping one eye on the clock, because each tape lasted only 60 minutes! Bill Westwood recalls that the recording technician made an error at the beginning of one session and the re-shooting of the 14 second segment took more than an hour! The taping took place over several days and the presenter had to wear the same clothes each day for continuity! The first taped course on Properties of Vacuum System Materials, by Bill Brunner, was initially completed in 1982 at a cost of $2,500 including the $1,000 honorarium; it consisted of eight 50 minute segments. However, it was not released till 1986 after some modifications! Another course, "Sputter Deposition and Ion Beam Processes", presented by Bill Westwood was also released in 1986. Both were extensive courses, comprising sets of eight video tapes and a “workbook” to provide additional information. Unfortunately, the demand for these video tapes was quite poor.
In 1985, a contract was arranged with Kevin Lawler and Tony Simpson of the Footscray Institute of Technology in Australia to develop material for three video tapes on “Pressure Gauges and Measurement,” “Capture Pumping” and “Materials in Vacuum.”
The 16mm films “Introduction to High Vacuum” and "Principles and Techniques of Leak Detection” which had been made during Era 1 were converted to video tape in 1987.
Sessions of the topical conferences and the lunchtime tutorial lecture at the 1988 Symposium were recorded on video tape and sold for $200 and $100 respectively. Although the cost was recovered by sales before the end of the year, the total sales were quite poor. However, two workshops were taped at the 1990 ICMC in San Diego.
In 1987, the producer of a television program for PBS on fusion, called STAR*POWER, asked for a $15,000 contribution from AVS towards the completion of the program; the Department of Energy had agreed to provide $50,000 and there were many other funders. The producer undertook to provide an educational version of the completed video for schools and AVS agreed to provide $5,000 for a listing as a sponsor. The program previewed in 1988.
The Education Committee initiated the support of the U.S. team in the Physics Olympiad in 1986, noting that it intended this as a long term annual commitment. Jack Wilson of the University of Maryland reported to the Board that this initial competition for a U.S. team was satisfactory with three bronze medals and he suggested that a $5,000 sponsorship would be significant. The Board considered this would help to publicize AVS and financial support has been provided every year since then.
Apart from the short course program, the Education Committee initiative which has had the greatest educational impact has been the Science Educators Workshop which was held for the first time at the 1990 Symposium in Toronto. What started out as a modest attempt by the AVS to help with secondary science education has proven to be a highly successful outreach program. Jim Solomon recalls that the Workshop had its beginning in the fall of 1989 when the President-Elect, Dave Hoffman, asked the Education Committee to develop a science outreach program. During the next couple of months members of the Committee worked on a structure and format for a workshop. It was decided that the focus of the workshop should be high school science teachers and the structure should be a balance of hands-on activities and lectures. The lectures would attempt to briefly cover vacuum technology and vacuum equipment. The hands-on activities would include simple, classic vacuum demonstrations, such as blowing up balloons in vacuum, transmission of sound, falling feather, triple point of water, and adiabatic expansion. All the materials discussed in the workshop would be included in a printed workshop handout. The first workshop would be held at the 1990 National Symposium in Toronto to give the teachers the opportunity to tour the equipment Exhibit in the afternoon. The workshop would last a full day with the lectures and hands-on activities in the morning.
The most difficult aspect of organizing the workshop resulted from the decision to donate to the attendees’ schools the same vacuum equipment used in the workshop. The challenge was to find a simple, inexpensive, vacuum pump suitable for all the workshop demonstrations. After trying a number of “low cost” pumps, including a hand operated unit, a pump manufactured by Marvac Scientific, specifically for classroom use, was selected. Two pumps, polycarbonate vacuum jars, and portable, re-usable, shipping containers were purchased for the workshop. Because of budgetary constraints, the number of pumps and jars to be purchased for donation to the schools was limited to 25.
The workshop plan, including equipment donations, and the budget to support it, were presented to the Board in the spring of 1990. The Board liked the plan but raised the issue of liability associated with donated equipment. The Committee was asked to investigate whether or not the AVS could be held liable for injuries that might result from the use of donated equipment. This turned out to be a major can of worms! The lawyer retained to advise the AVS in this matter recommended that: (1) the AVS require equipment recipients to sign a liability release form and (2) the AVS should not own the equipment before donation. The latter point almost scuttled the entire plan for equipment donations. Fortunately, Marvac Scientific was willing to help in this matter. A procedure was worked out with Marvac whereby, rather than receiving the equipment from the AVS, the schools received a “grant” to receive the pre-paid equipment directly from Marvac. This issue eventually led to the adoption of a formal AVS policy on equipment donations.
Once the BOD approved the workshop and appropriated the funds the real work began. The hardest job fell to the Local Arrangements Committee and its Chair, Frank Shepherd to recruit the teachers and make arrangements for the facilities required. Richard Gilbert and Jim Solomon generated a workbook while Ken Nebesney and Art Nelson worked on the demonstrations and experiment descriptions. In addition, equipment had to be ordered and prepaid, certificates of attendance printed, mailing lists and a workshop schedule prepared, and equipment shipped to Toronto.
A total of 160 letters were sent to teachers in the Toronto area and 63 teachers signed up to attend the one-day workshop. Instructors included Marilyn Barger, Bruce Kendall, Richard Gilbert, Art Nelson, Ken Nebesney, and Jim Solomon. At the last minute, the President, Dave Hoffman, insisted on a “practice” session to demonstrate to the Board what the workshop was going to cover and how the material would be presented. The first Science Educators’ Workshop was opened by Dave welcoming the Workshop attendees and was a great success. The Committee felt that, with all the effort already expended, the Workshop should be repeated at the 1991 Symposium in Seattle; the Board agreed and the Workshop became an annual event. Details of the Workshops (PDF format) have been recorded by Jim Solomon.
The steady expansion, both in the number of short courses offered by the Education Committee, and in the attendance at these courses, was described by Harwood and Czanderna for the period 1969-1981. Until 1979, these National courses were essentially given only during the Symposium, but individual Chapters also organized courses using their own instructors. Starting in 1979, the National courses were also offered throughout the year and there was significant growth in the whole program. Courses were given in conjunction with the Rocky Mountain Chapter symposium in Denver and at the 6th ICMC in San Diego as well as at the Greater New York, North Central, New England, Delaware Valley and Upstate New York Chapters; in addition, the New Mexico chapter ran its own courses. A “Basic Vacuum Technology for Technicians” course was given at Blauvelt, NY by Howard Patton. With the growing number of course programs, it became necessary to ensure there were no scheduling conflicts! There were 49 courses on the 1979 list and 60 in 1980; 1693 and 1989 people registered in 1979 and 1980 respectively. In 1981, 16 of the 21 Chapters offered courses; 23 different courses were being presented with 9 new courses being added in one year. As new courses continued to be added to the programs, the total annual registration increased.
A “Short Course Policy for Chapters/Divisions” was approved by the Board in 1980 to provide guidelines for the operation of all the course programs. Because of the new copyright laws, instructors were asked to sign a document that they had received permission to use published material in their course notes; five instructors refused to do so and the Board decided that their notes could not be used. There was considerable disagreement about the interpretation of the copyright law; in some cases, it seemed that permission would have to be obtained each time a course was given, which would require a large, and wasted, effort by the instructors. To encourage new instructors to generate courses, the Education Committee published a manual in 1981 on “How to Prepare a Short Course” and initiated course evaluation forms to provide feedback on the quality of the courses, as perceived by the attendees; the same basic form has been used ever since. Feedback from these forms showed that attendees would like to see more equipment and tours of the Exhibit were arranged for attendees at some courses during the Symposium.
The courses held in Washington in the spring of 1981 were filled to 83% of capacity and four new courses were over-subscribed! As a result of the growth, a Short Course Planning Committee was set up to consider course management and structure. The plan was to concentrate on course topics which were of AVS interest and to avoid graduate level courses; the courses should be of practical application, which has sometimes been called “nuts and bolts”. A 100% expansion of the courses over the next few years was envisaged to meet education commitments to the technical community.
Over all the course programs in 1982, the average attendance was 65% of the total capacity. Of course, the course program had to be advertised so that potential students would know they existed! In 1982, 30,000 copies of a two-color brochure, with profiles of the instructors, were mailed and similar brochures for each program were mailed to appropriate audiences. However, during a Town Hall meeting on “Publicity, Promotion and Education” in 1988, Ed Sickafus noted that, despite all the course advertising, the Ford Motor Company were planning to retrain many people in vacuum technology but were totally unaware of the AVS courses!
By 1983 the annual cash flow of the program was approaching $500,000, or over 25% of the total AVS budget, and the Planning Committee recommended that the responsibility for the business aspects of the courses should be separated from the technical content and quality. It proposed a new structure and the Short Course Executive Committee (SCEC) was formed to take over responsibility for the courses from the Education Committee; Frank Ura, who had been chair of the Education Committee in 1982-3, was appointed Chair.
In 1984, Vivienne Harwood resigned from the SCEC where she had been responsible for technical marketing. The Board expressed its appreciation for her efforts as “the single society member most influential in maintaining quality and growth of courses” and she was presented with a commemorative plaque at the 1984 Awards lunch.
There was a steady increase in course registrations at the National Symposium, to about 600 in 1988; 1984 was an exceptional year with 804 registrations. However, the main growth in this period was in registrations for courses given at Chapter events, either organized by the chapter alone or in partnership with the National program. In 1986, revenue sharing arrangements were made with both the Northern California and New England Chapters and joint course offerings have been held every year since then. The first joint program with Northern California in 1986 was the largest registration ever outside the Symposium. Some Chapters used the same instructors and course material as the National program but others developed their own instructors and courses. Registrations at Chapter courses increased from about 300 in 1979 to over 1100 in 1989, largely due to the courses at the Northern California Chapter spring meeting; in some years, the number of registrations at this meeting was limited by the size of the rooms, with classes of fifty not being uncommon. Some courses had to be repeated to cope with the demand. This was mainly due to the growth in the microelectronics industry and the increasing use by that industry of technologies, such as plasma etching and deposition. The microelectronics industry is also characterized by “booms and busts” and this accounts in part for the rapid fluctuation in registrations. The amplitude and frequency of these oscillations have both increased over the years!
Chapters can offer courses tailored to meet the specific needs of the local area where they are held and may charge lower fees to encourage attendance. Technicians, especially those who are just starting to work in the vacuum field, have less access to the National courses, unless they happen to live in the immediate vicinity of a meeting; few employers are prepared to send an inexperienced technician to a 4- or 5-day course, often in an expensive hotel. Local groups have been active in addressing this need. Thus the Northern California Chapter offered annually a popular course entitled “Vacuum Basics for the Novice.” In 1985 this comprised two parallel courses, one for the non-technical novice, and the other for the technically oriented novice. Similar basic courses have been held in many other chapters; for a number of years, Gerry Lewin taught a 2-day non-mathematical course, based upon his 1987 monograph, at both National and Chapter meetings.
Course programs were also been held in conjunction with other, non-AVS conferences. In 1981 and 1982, courses were given at meetings of other technical societies: Society of Vacuum Coaters (SVC), Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, Mexican Vacuum Society, Brazilian Vacuum Society, and the Swedish Vacuum Society. Courses were given at other SVC conferences in 1983 and 1989 “as a courtesy” but attendance was poor in both cases. The SVC later initiated their own course program, often with the same instructors as AVS. Two courses were given at the SPIE Conference on “Optical Mass Data Storage” in 1983, also with poor attendance. The Society participated in a series of hands-on surface analysis courses at the Major Analytical Instrumentation Center at the University of Florida in 1983. In 1986, courses were held in Ottawa in conjunction with the Canadian Semiconductor Technology Conference; this is held in alternate years and there has been a National course program at each conference.
Since the beginning of the course program, certificates have been given to all course attendees; each one is signed by the President and the Education Committee Chair. With the huge increase in the number of attendees, this became a daunting task. In 1983, it was decided that the certificates would be printed with the signatures of the President and the Committee Chair and then personally signed by the instructor, who had direct contact with the students; this procedure has continued to date.
In 1979, the Board decided to authorize on-site courses, provided they were accessible to the public. This meant that a course could be taught for a company audience in a public location, such as a hotel or college, but not on company premises, This was partly to meet the needs of instructors whose employer would not allow them to teach for a closed audience in another company. There was also a concern that a course on company property would jeopardize the 501.[c].(3) status. However, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Chemical Engineers all provided in-house courses, which represented 10% of all their courses, and in 1983 the AVS policy was relaxed to permit courses to be given to restricted audiences at government laboratories, After a legal opinion in 1984 that on-site courses would not compromise the tax status provided they constituted a small part (say 10%) of the total course program, approval was extended to permit private, on-site courses to be given for any organization. Six such courses were successfully held in 1985 but another was cancelled very close to the scheduled time. During this era, on-site courses were a minor part of the expanding course program but they became more frequent in the late 1990’s.
At the 1982 Symposium in Baltimore, the Instructors Reception was held for the first time to show the society’s appreciation to the instructors for a very successful course program, both in the course quality and the income for the society. It was actually a breakfast in 1982 but since then has been held after the courses for the day, rather than before!
The New Mexico Chapter sponsored and conducted courses for the Mexican Vacuum Society; for example two courses, one on leak detection and the other on thin-film techniques, were given in Mexico. Courses have also been offered in a number of countries, although language differences do place limits on this. The cultural differences between the USA and other countries must also be considered; in Brazil, courses rarely start on time and attendees come and go throughout; in Europe, people are reticent to ask questions during class but ask them in private.
Other organizations were also running courses which were similar in nature. Princeton Scientific Consultants gave courses at Princeton in 1984, courses were given at the Symposium on Applied Surface Analysis in Dayton, and a course on “Modern Analytical Techniques” was given by the Major Analytical Instrumentation Center at the University of Florida. All these courses were advertised in the Newsletter, as a service to the membership.
