UHV design criteria
Due to the absence of convective cooling, vacuum PCBs must be designed with careful attention to thermal management with low outgassing and bake-out compatible substrates.
TU Wien spin-off project · Patent pending
Electronics for the extreme.
Invacuo makes custom printed circuit board solutions for ultra-high vacuum environments: high-fidelity device interfacing with low-outgassing and flexible substrates.
- Christian Doppler foundationTransfer.S2S programme
- TU WienVienna, Austria
- Patent pendingAustrian Patent Office
Milestones — hover a year
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The idea
A UHV-compatible PCB anode emerges from a master thesis at TU Wien's Physics Faculty; a patent application follows at the Austrian Patent Office.
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Grant awarded
The Christian Doppler foundation selects the project for its Transfer.S2S programme.
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Programme launch
Three years of funded research begin in January; the segmented polyimide-core anode is published in Review of Scientific Instruments (Kendler et al.).
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Spin-off
Planned commercialisation as a TU Wien spin-off.
The mission
PCB technology, ready for
ultra-high vacuum.
Standard printed circuit boards outgas under ultra-high vacuum and fail at high voltages or temperatures, so scientific instruments fall back on point-to-point wiring and ceramic parts. Invacuo develops circuit solutions that bring the design freedom of PCBs to scientific vacuum experiments and ultra-high vacuum production lines.
High-fidelity signal readout
Vacuum based sensor and detectors pick up faint measurement signals, which rely on high-bandwidth signal readout circuitry to minimize signal attenuation and distortion. It is crucial to preserve signal integrity throughout the vacuum system, before amplification and evaluation can be performed on air.
Flexible interfacing
Vacuum systems usually host multiple instruments confined to a small volume. Flexible PCB cables with click-on connectors simplify wiring and maintenance within intricate vacuum systems.
What we build
Ultra-high vacuum solutions
Printed anode structures
Capacitively coupled readout anodes for microchannel plates and channeltron particle detectors — including the segmented polyimide-core timing anode published in Kendler et al.
Vacuum interfacing of hermetically sealed ICs
An ASIC femtoampere current-measurement chip deployed directly inside the vacuum, cutting leakage currents and signal interference to improve the accuracy of Faraday cups.
Radio frequency antennas
UHV-compatible printed 2D resonators on thin polyimide and LCP substrates. First application: a transmission electron microscope at USTEM, TU Wien.
Ultra-fast ion pulses
Picosecond ion pulses generated by laser-stimulated desorption from a tungsten nanotip, as published in Redl et al.
Peer-reviewed
Research behind the technology.
A capacitively coupled segmented polyimide core anode for a microchannel plate timing detector
Generation of picosecond ion pulses using laser-stimulated desorption from a tungsten nanotip
In the news · TU Wien
„Elektronik für Extreme: Signaltreue unter Weltraumbedingungen“
TU Wien announces four Transfer.S2S grants — among them Invacuo's programme on signal fidelity under space conditions.
The people
A research unit at TU Wien.
Invacuo grew out of the research unit of Richard A. Wilhelm at TU Wien. The Christian Doppler foundation's Transfer.S2S programme funds three years of research on the road to commercialisation.
Richard A. Wilhelm
Principal Investigator
Michael Kendler
PhD Student
Sophie Wrathall
PhD Student
Alexander Redl
PhD Student
Lisa Gmainer
Master Student
Alexander Prohaska
Master Student
Working with
Partners & collaborations.
TU Wien Innovation Incubation Center
Spin-off incubation
CERN
Research collaboration
D.I.S Germany GmbH
CEM pilot project
USTEM · TU Wien
RF antenna project
Bring PCB design freedom
into your vacuum system.
We are looking for partners in science and industry — for pilot projects, collaborations and early applications, from detector readout to flexible UHV cabling.