Historically, it has been extremely difficult if not impossible to adapt steel honeycomb optical tops to meet the rigorous requirements of vacuum chamber applications. Engineers have sacrificed the rigidity, flatness, damping, and convenience of optical tops for baked, vacuum compatible machined structures of aluminum and stainless steel. Until now.

TMC has combined our inherently clean CleanTop® design with several new proprietary design features, cleaning methods, and a vacuum pump-down procedure developed for the University of Texas’ Petawatt Laser Project to achieve a level of vacuum compatibility previously unattainable. Though this new design does not require baking (and is incompatible with baking), engineers at University of Texas’ Petawatt Laser have achieved 8 x 10^-7 torr in a 7-foot diameter, 380 cubic foot chamber containing a 14-foot long CleanTop Optical Top.

Closely correlated with their vacuum compatibility is the fact that these tops only out-gas extremely small amounts ensuring they do not damage optics (because attaining the target vacuum level would be of little value if the top emitted enough contamination to damage optics). The top for the Petawatt Laser application was demonstrated to cause less than a 0.1% loss in optical transmission of a test optic.

We cannot guarantee precisely what level of vacuum you will achieve or what ratio of optical transmission you will maintain. But, we can guarantee that we will provide you with the same design features, cleaning methods, and recommended pumping procedures that assisted the University of Texas’ Petawatt Laser in attaining a vacuum level of 8 x 10^-7 torr and less than 0.1% transmission loss.