Paper VT-TuM5
Development of a PhD-level course in Vacuum Science and Technology

Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 9:20 am, Room 14

There are many available courses in Vacuum Technology, including those offered by the AVS. They typically have an engineering-oriented approach aimed at the practical user of vacuum system. When I started teaching a PhD-level course in Vacuum Science and Technology, I was faced with a different – pedagogical and scientific – challenge. The attendees are PhD students who work, or will work, with vacuum in their PhD research and future careers, but most are not vacuum practitioners per se. Neither is the teacher. In such a course, the students need to achieve an in-depth understanding of the science of vacuum and how it can ultimately affect their research. Here, available textbooks on the topic of “Vacuum Technology” are not at PhD level – they tend to be “engineering user’s guides” or similar.

In achieving this, a clear definition of the objectives is essential. In a PhD course, the aim is to give students a thorough understanding of how vacuum components and vacuum systems work, and the fundamental physics and chemistry behind them – emphasizing the latter part, in contrast to a more engineering-oriented course. Among others, this means that students should understand and be able to define the vacuum concepts (ideal, rough, low, high, ultrahigh, etc…), understand and be able to explain in own words the kinetic theory of gases, the principles for gas flow at low pressures, and physico-chemical phenomena in vacuum (evaporation, condensation, solubility, permeation, adsorption, absorption, desorption). They should also be able to apply the knowledge and understanding listed above to practically and theoretically relevant situations in vacuum science and technology, communicate this understanding orally and in writing, and be able to critically reflect on scientific articles relevant to vacuum science and technology.

Here, I will discuss my pedagogical and scientific approach to such a course and how to align the course activities for the PhD students to reach the above goals. I will also discuss the examination format, and why I have found it to be particularly suitable for this type of course. It is a combination of continuous examination in connection with the lectures and home examination, which also contains an assignment connecting the course content to the laboratory work of the students. The continuous examination is not mandatory, but gives credits for the home examination. The mandatory parts of the course are examined through peer review and an ending seminar.