If you are an astronomer with an optical reflecting telescope, the quality of your mirror is one of your most significant concerns. Large observatories will therefore often have on-site vapour deposition plants to revitalise their reflectors by depositing a fresh layer of aluminium upon them. You might think that such a device would be the preserve only of such well-funded sites, but perhaps [Michael Koch]’s work will prove you wrong. He’s created his own vapour deposition system (Google Translate link of the German original) from scratch, and while it might be smaller than the institutional equivalents it is no less effective in its task.

At the heart of it is a stainless steel vacuum vessel with a two stage vacuum pump system to evacuate it. The mirror to be silvered is suspended in the vessel, and a piece of aluminium is suspended over a coil of tungsten wire that his electrically heated to melt it. The molten aluminium is described as “wetting” the tungsten wire in the same manner as we’ll be used to solder working on copper, but in the vacuum it vaporizes and deposits itself upon the mirror. Such a simple description glosses over the impressive work that went into it.

This is a long-running project that isn’t entirely new, but very much worth a look if only for its introduction to this fascinating field. If you are new to vacuum work, how about looking at a Superconference presentation introducing vacuum technology?

Thanks [Paul Bauer] for the tip.