Materials Science, Inc. a supplier of sputtering sources, power supplies and related equipment is relocating its headquarters to its Colorado manufacturing location of several decades from San Diego, California as its founder John Miller retires. The transition begins in July, 2023. Patrick Manley, is assuming management of the company, adding to his decades long role as Materials Science, Inc. manufacturing and engineering manager. John will remain as an active advisor and consultant as needed as he fades off into the sunset. The rest of the team remains. All of Materials Science customers and products, some dating to 1989, will continue to be supported without interruption. NSA Scientific, Inc. (Patrick Manley – President) will assume the intellectual property, customer base and Materials Science, Inc. assets, but continue to operate under the dba Materials Science identity to maintain continuity. The transition will be seamless and all contracts, warranties and purchase orders placed prior to July, 2023 will continue to be honored. Individual customers will be notified of any specific legal and financial details that may change.

The NDT-4000 is a Device Testing System for testing devices or samples in extreme vacuum and controllable uniform heat and cold cycle conditions. It is equipped with computer control, safety interlocks, and mulitple levels of access with password restrictions. It can be used to test devices/samples with automated heat and cool cycles for extended periods of time exceeding 36 hours with varying temperature conditions defined by the recipe. One of the common applications of this system would be space simulation. The approximate chamber size is 43" in length and 24" in diameter. A 16"x32" sliding thermal platform can be controlled within ±1 °C across its surface area for temperatures ranging from -100 °C to 150 °C. This platform is mounted on rolls so that it can be pulled out to 75% of its length for loading devices/samples. The chamber has provision for 4x 8" CF flanges that can be configured with an assortment of customer-defined feedthroughs for digital and analog communication, temperature measurement, power, RF, and other instrumentation needs. The standard vacuum system consists of a 1250 l/sec turbomolecular pump and a 680 l/min dry scroll backing pump. The base pressure of the system can be as low as 7x10-8 Torr and could reach 10-6 Torr range in less than 20 minutes.

k-Space has added new color measurement functionality to its line of glass inspection and defect detection tools. With the kSA Color Measurement tool, RGB values are calibrated to known color Swatch standards. L*a*b* values can also be determined, ultimately enabling the tool to provide an accurate measurement for absolute color values. This is another great example of k-Space collaborating with its worldwide customer base.

Porous thin films are used in a variety of applications to provide enhanced electrical, sensing, or thermal characteristics dictated by the porous structure of the film. Mixing a skeletal material with air or other fillers, reduces the density compared to the bulk material effectively reducing the refractive index, dielectric constant, and other relevant parameters to levels not achievable with bulk materials. Traditional porosimetry techniques such as high-pressure mercury or liquid nitrogen porosimetry are not applicable to the small volumes of thin porous films.