BYU Physics
Life as a vacuum technician
This page describes some of the work I did for the BYU Physics department as a vacuum technician. I learned so much and I’m greatful for all those who helped me along the way and taught me many important skills. Shoutout especially to John and Robert!
This was neat to see. A large capacitor at 30kV discharges through a thin tungsten wire, vaporizing it and causing a plasma z-pinch. The frames of slow motion footage show green flourescence from the plastic around the tungsten wire. The middle picture is of the plasma pinch, the last is a reminder of how we can use this z-pinch to compress plasmas containing hydrogen to cause nuclear fusion reactions.
We built devices to teach about plasma and the Paschen curve. A common sight on the job.
Testing a turbo pump system. I found it interesting to see the resonances on an audio FFT during spin-down.
Damage due to a literal hardware bug (see if you can spot it). Taking apart a large spectral analysis setup. Norbert the tube furnace.