1

1
The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

The Greek philosopher Democritus (circa 460 to 375 B.C.), Fig. 1.1, assumed
that the world would be made up of many small and undividable particles
that he called atoms (atomos, Greek: undividable). In between the atoms,
Democritus presumed empty space (a kind of micro-vacuum) through which
the atoms moved according to the general laws of mechanics. Variations in
shape, orientation, and arrangement of the atoms would cause variations
of macroscopic objects. Acknowledging this philosophy, Democritus, together
with his teacher Leucippus, may be considered as the inventors of the concept
of vacuum. For them, the empty space was the precondition for the variety of
our world, since it allowed the atoms to move about and arrange themselves
freely. Our modern view of physics corresponds very closely to this idea of
Democritus. However, his philosophy did not dominate the way of thinking
until the 16th century.
It was Aristotle’s (384 to 322 B.C.) philosophy, which prevailed throughout
the Middle Ages and until the beginning of modern times. In his book
Physica [1], around 330 B.C., Aristotle denied the existence of an empty space.
Where there is nothing, space could not be defined. For this reason no
vacuum (Latin: empty space, emptiness) could exist in nature. According to
his philosophy, nature consisted of water, earth, air, and fire. The lightest of
these four elements, fire, is directed upwards, the heaviest, earth, downwards.
Additionally, nature would forbid vacuum since neither up nor down could be
defined within it. Around 1300, the medieval scholastics began to speak of a
horror vacui, meaning nature’s fear of vacuum. Nature would abhor vacuum and
wherever such a vacuum may be on the verge to develop, nature would fill it
immediately.
Around 1600, however, the possibility or impossibility of an evacuated
volume without any matter was a much-debated issue within the scientific-
philosophical community of Italy, and later, in France and Germany as well.
This happened at the time when the first scientists were burnt at the stake
(Bruno in 1600).
In 1613, Galileo Galilei in Florence attempted to measure the weight and
density of air. He determined the weight of a glass flask containing either

Handbook of Vacuum Technology. Edited by Karl Jousten

Copyright  2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
ISBN: 978-3-527-40723-1
2 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

Fig. 1.1 Democritus. Bronze statue

around 250 B.C., National Museum in
Naples.

compressed air, air at atmospheric pressure, or water. He found a value of

2.2 g/
for the density of air (the modern value is 1.2 g/
). This was a big step
forward: air could now be considered as a substance with weight. Therefore, it
could be assumed that air, in some way, could also be removed from a volume.
In 1630, Galilei was in correspondence with the Genoese scientist Baliani
discussing the water supply system of Genoa. Galilei argued that, for a long
time, he had been aware of the fact that the maximum height of a water column
in a vertical pipe produced by a suction pump device was about 34 feet. Baliani
replied that he thought this was due to the limited pressure of the atmosphere!
One can see from these examples that in Italy in the first half of the 17th
century the ground was prepared for an experiment, which was performed in
1640 by Gasparo Berti and 1644 by Evangelista Torricelli, a professor in Florence.
The Torricelli experiment was bound to be one of the key experiments of natural
sciences.
Torricelli filled a glass tube of about 1 m in length with mercury. The open
end was sealed with a fingertip. The tube was then brought to an upright
position with the end pointing downward sealed by the fingertip. This end
was immersed in a mercury reservoir and the fingertip removed so that the
mercury inside the tube was in free contact with the reservoir. The mercury
column in the tube sank to a height of 76 cm, measured from the liquid surface
of the reservoir. Figure 1.2 shows a drawing of the Torricellian apparatus.
The experiment demonstrated that the space left above the mercury after
turning the tube upside down was in fact a vacuum: the mercury level was
independent of the volume above, and it could be filled completely with water
admitted from below. This experiment was the first successful attempt to
produce vacuum and subsequently convinced the scientific community. An
earlier attempt by Berti who used water was less successful.
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 3

B A

C Fig. 1.2 Torricelli’s vacuum experiment in 1644. The level AB of

mercury in both tubes C and D was equal, independent of the size of
the additional volume E in tube D. From [2].

Fig. 1.3 Portrait of Blaise Pascal.

In 1646, the mathematician Pierre Petit in France informed Blaise Pascal,

Fig. 1.3, about Torricelli’s experiment. Pascal repeated the experiment and,
in addition, tried other types of liquid. He found that the maximum height
was exactly inversely proportional to the used liquid’s density. Pascal knew
the equally famous philosopher Descartes. During a discussion in 1647, they
developed the idea of air-pressure measurements at different altitudes using a
Torricellian tube.
Pascal wrote a letter to his brother-in-law Périer and asked him to carry out the
experiment on the very steep mountain Puy-de-Dôme, close to Périer’s home.
Périer agreed and on September 19, 1648 [3], he climbed the Puy-de-Dôme
(1500 m) accompanied by several men who served to testify the results which
was common practice at the time. They recorded the height of the mercury
column at various altitudes. From the foot to the top of the mountain, the
4 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

difference of the mercury column’s height was almost 8 cm and Pascal was
very pleased: the first successful pressure measurement had been carried out!
Torricelli, however, never enjoyed the triumph of the experiment based on his
invention: he had died a year before.
Despite these experiments the discussion between the plenists (no vacuum
is possible in nature) and the vacuists (vacuum is possible) continued. One
of the leading vacuists was Otto von Guericke, burgomaster of Magdeburg in
Germany from 1645 to 1676, Fig. 1.4.
He was the first German scientist who gave experiments a clear priority over
merely intellectual considerations when attempting to solve problems about
nature.
Around 1650, Guericke tried to produce a vacuum in a water-filled, wooden
cask by pumping out the water with a pump used by the fire brigade in
Magdeburg. Although the cask was specially sealed, the experiment failed: the
air rushed into the empty space above the water through the wood, developing
a chattering noise. Consequently, Guericke ordered to build a large copper
sphere, but when the air was pumped out, the sphere was suddenly crushed.
Guericke correctly recognized atmospheric pressure as the cause and ascribed
the weakness of the sphere to the loss of sphericity. The problem was solved
by constructing a thicker and more precisely shaped sphere. After evacuating
this sphere and leaving it untouched for several days, Guericke found that the
air was seeping into the sphere, mainly through the pistons of the pump and
the seals of the valves. To avoid this, he constructed a new pump where these
parts were sealed by water, an idea still used in today’s vacuum pumps, but
with oil instead of water.
Guericke’s third version (Fig. 1.5) was an air pump, which pumped air directly
out of a vessel. These pumps were capable of producing vacua in much larger
volumes than Torricellian tubes.

Fig. 1.4 Portrait of Otto von Guericke in

1672. Engraving after a master of Cornelius
Galle the Younger. From [4].
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 5

ICONISMUS VI. LT , Lib

r r Fig. VII
q r b c
q r Fig. II
x x
nm
m n
Fig. b c I z
Fig. IV
w g
y h
Fig. s III
w V
e Fig.
a
h f
h h

f
u
c Fig. VI

f
a
d

Fig. 1.5 Guericke’s air pump no. 3. Design for Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, 1663. From [4].

The word pump is still used for today’s vacuum pumps, although they are
actually rarefied gas compressors. This is due to the origin of the vacuum
pump: the water pump used by the fire brigade in Magdeburg.
Guericke was also a very successful promoter of his own knowledge and
experiments, which he used to catch attention for political purposes. In 1654,
he performed several spectacular experiments for the German Reichstag in
Regensburg. The most famous experiment demonstrating the new vacuum
technique was displayed in Magdeburg in 1657.
Guericke used two hemispheres with a diameter of 40 cm, known as the
Magdeburg hemispheres, Fig. 1.6. One of the hemispheres had a valve for
evacuation, and between the hemispheres, Guericke placed a leather ring
soaked with wax and turpentine as seal. Teams of eight horses on either
side were just barely able to separate the two hemispheres after the enclosed
volume had been evacuated.
News of Guericke’s experiment spread throughout Europe and his air pump
can be considered as one of the greatest technical inventions of the 17th century,
the others being the telescope, the microscope, and the pendulum clock.
The new vacuum technology brought up many interesting experiments.
Most of them were performed by Guericke and Schott in Germany, by Huygens
in the Netherlands, and by Boyle and Hooke in England.
6 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

Fig. 1.6 Painting of Guericke showing his experiment with the hemispheres to the
German emperor, Kaiser Ferdinand III. From [4].

Guericke showed that a bell positioned in a vacuum could not be heard; a

magnetic force, however, was not influenced by the vacuum. Instead of metal,
he often used glass vessels in order to make the processes in vacuum visible.
For this, he used glass flasks from the pharmacist. These were called recipients,
a word still used today for vacuum vessels. Guericke put a candle in a glass
vessel and found that the candle extinguished slowly as evacuation proceeded.
Huygens suspended a lump of butter in the centre of a vacuum jar and, after
evacuation, he placed a hot iron cap over the jar. In spite of the hot jar, the
butter did not melt. Animals set into vacuum chambers died in a cruel manner.
Guericke even put fish in a glass vessel, half filled with water. After evacuating
the air above and from the water, most of the fish swelled and died.
Noble societies of the 17th and 18th century enjoyed watching experiments
of this kind for amusement (Fig. 1.7).
However, scientific experiments were performed as well during the early
days of vacuum. Huygens verified that the free fall of a feather in a vacuum
tube was exactly equal to that of a piece of lead. Boyle found that the product
of volume and pressure was constant, while Amontons in France showed that
this constant is temperature-dependent (1699).
In 1673, Huygens attempted to build an internal combustion engine using
the pressure difference between the atmosphere and a vacuum to lift heavy
weights (Fig. 1.8). Gunpowder, together with a burning wick, is placed in
container C, arranged at the lower end of cylinder AB. The violent reaction of
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 7

Fig. 1.7 ‘‘Experiment on a bird in the air controls the plug at the top of the glass
pump’’, 1768, by Joseph Wright, National globe. By opening it, he saves the life of the
Gallery, London. A pet cockatoo (top center) already dazed bird. The man below the
was placed in a glass vessel and the vessel ‘‘experimenter’’ stops the time until the
was evacuated. The lecturer’s left hand possible death of the bird.

K
H6

F E E F
G

Fig. 1.8 Huygens’ explosion motor

(from [3]). After the explosion of
gunpowder in container C, the temperature
C B drops creating vacuum that lifts weight G
8 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

the gunpowder drives the air out of the cylinder through the wetted leather
tubes EF. Cylinder AB cools down and produces a vacuum. The tubes EF
then flatten and seal, and the atmospheric pressure drives down piston D thus
lifting weight G.
During the experiments, the importance of carefully cleaned materials
became obvious and it was realized that the quality of pumps would have to
be improved. Engineering improvements by Hooke, Hauksbee (1670 to 1713),
and others followed. Somewhat later, the Englishman H. A. Fleuss developed
a piston pump that he named Geryk in honor of Otto von Guericke.
However, it was not until 1855, that significantly better vacua could be
produced using a pump designed by Geissler in Germany. Sprengel improved
this pump in 1865 and 1873 (Figs. 1.9 and 1.10), which used Torricelli’s
principle. Ten kilograms of mercury had to be lifted up and down by hand
for a pump speed of about 0.004
/s. About six hours of pumping action
were required to evacuate a vessel of 6
from 0.1 mm Hg (13 Pa) to about
2 · 10−5 mm Hg(2.7 · 10−3 Pa)! With these pumps, for the first time, the high-
vacuum regime became available. In 1879, Edison used them in his Menlo Park
to evacuate the first incandescent lamps (Fig. 1.11).
The early scientists who produced vacuum still had no clear definition of
a vacuum. They had no idea that air could consist of atoms and molecules,
which in part are removed to produce a vacuum. Until 1874, the Torricellian
tube was the only instrument available for measuring vacuum, and limited
to about 0.5 mm Hg (67 Pa). The idea of vacuum was still quite an absolute
(present or not) as in the Aristotelian philosophy but it was not accepted as a
measurable quantity. The gas kinetic theory by Clausing, Maxwell, Boltzmann,

C D Exhaust
tube

Fall tube

Fig. 1.9 Sprengel’s first mercury

pumps of 1865. A falling mercury
droplet formed a piston which
drove the air downwards (suction
ports at D and ‘‘exhaust tube’’).
E Later, Sprengel improved the
pump by adding a mechanism to
recover the mercury (from [6]).
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 9

Pumps:
Mechanical pistons Liquid pistons
1858

Vacuum gauges

Mercury gauges 1873 McLeod

Guericke
10
Boyle
1660 Great Exhibition
1 Hawksbee 1850
1704
Geissler
10−1 1858
Minimum pressure (Torr)

Sprengel
10−2 1865
Crookes
1876
Edison
10−3 1876
Fleuss
1894
10−4
Gimingham
1884
10−5
Kahlbaum
1894

10−6
1660 1680 1700 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900
Year

Fig. 1.10 Progress in lowest generated and measured pressures in vacuum from 1660 to
1900. Data from [5].

and others as well as the invention of the gauge by McLeod (1874), however,
showed that vacuum indeed was a measurable physical quantity.
The McLeod gauge, Fig. 1.12, still applied in a few laboratories today, uses
Boyle’s law. By compressing a known volume of gas by a known ratio to a
higher pressure, which can be measured using a mercury column, the original
pressure can be calculated.
Huygens’ idea of using the pressure difference between the atmosphere and
a vacuum to build an engine was continued by Thomas Newcomen in the 18th
century. He used condensed steam to create vacuum. Newcomen’s engines
were broadly used in England to pump water from deep mine shafts, to pump
domestic water supplies, and to supply water for industrial water wheels in
times of drought. His machines predate rotary steam engines by 70 years.
Another exciting development in the history of vacuum technology took
place when atmospheric railways were constructed in England during the mid
10 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

Fig. 1.11 Edison’s production of incandescent lamps in Menlo

Park in 1879. The man standing elevated pours mercury into a
Sprengel pump (Fig. 1.9) to evacuate an incandescent lamp.

19th century. Since steam locomotives at the time were rather unreliable, dirty,
noisy, heavy, and not able to face steep gradients, a group of imaginative
engineers conceived a plan to build clean, silent, and light trains driven by the
force between the atmosphere and a vacuum on the surface of a piston placed
between the rails.
In 1846, Brunel built such a system on the South Devon coast of England
(Fig. 1.13).
A continuous line of a cast iron tube was arranged centrally between the rails.
The pressure difference of the external atmosphere on its rear and the rough
vacuum on its front surface propelled a tightly fitted piston inside the tube.
Huge stationary pumps placed in about five-kilometer intervals along the track
generated the vacuum. The underside of the first railway coach was connected
to a frame forming the rear end of the piston. Along the top of the tube was a
slot closed by a longitudinal airtight valve, consisting of a continuous leather
flap reinforced with iron framing.
An average speed of 103 km/h over 6 km was reported for these trains, which
was breathtaking at the time. However, atmospheric railways did not prevail.
Accidents with starting trains, the lack of control by the engineer on board,
and the inefficiency of the longitudinal valve (for example, rats ate through the
leather sealing), among other reasons, contributed to their demise.
The large advances in physics in the second half of the 19th century are
almost unthinkable without the aid of vacuum technology. Hauksbee already
discovered gas discharges at the beginning of the 18th century. Significant
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 11

Fig. 1.12 Original McLeod vacuum gauge [7]. (a) Measuring port;
(b) simple siphon barometer; (c) glass bulb with a volume of 48 ml
and a volume tube at the upper end having identical diameter as
the measuring tube (d); (f) vertical 80 cm long tube; (g) reservoir
of mercury. As soon as the mercury is lifted to the level of (e), the
a gas in (c) is compressed developing a height difference between
d (d) and the tube above (c) according to the volume ratio.

i e

progress, however, was only possible after the invention of the Geissler pump
in 1855. Three years later, Plücker found that the glow of the glass wall
during a gas discharge shifts when a magnetic field is applied. In 1860, Hittorf
discovered that the rays from a cathode produce a very sharp shadow if an
object is placed in between the cathode and a glass. Many scientists continued
research on cathode rays, which finally led to the discovery of the electron as a
component of the cathode rays by J. Thomson in 1898.
In 1895, Röntgen reported that when a discharge is pumped to less than
1 Pa, a highly penetrating radiation is produced capable of passing through
air, flesh, and even thin sheets of metal. He named the beams X-rays.
In 1887, Hertz discovered the photoelectric effect under vacuum. In 1890,
Ramsay and Rayleigh discovered the noble gases. All these experiments helped
to understand the nature of vacuum: the increasing rarefaction of gas atoms
and molecules. At the time, it became clear that any matter in nature consists
of atoms.
12 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

Fig. 1.13 Drawing of the vacuum traction (b) connects the piston with the leading
tube to propel an atmospheric railway wagon of the train. Wheel (c) lifts and opens
(from [8]). Piston (a) slides forward due to the longitudinal valve (d) while wheel
the action of a vacuum pump positioned in (e) closes it. From [8].
front of (to the right of) the piston.

In 1909, Knudsen [9] published a comprehensive investigation on the flow of

gases through long and narrow tubes. He divided this flow into three regimes:
the molecular regime at very low pressures, where the particles are so dilute
that they do not interact with each other but only with the surrounding walls,
the viscous regime at higher pressures, where the motion of particles is greatly
influenced by mutual collisions, and an intermediate regime. This publication
can be considered as the beginning of vacuum physics.
For his experiments, Knudsen used the so-called Gaede pump. Gaede, a
professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany, was the most important
inventor of vacuum pumps since Guericke. Gaede’s pump was a rotary mercury
pump (Fig. 1.14), in which the Torricellian tube was wound up so that it
allowed continuous pumping by rotary action. The pump was driven by an
electromotor. Its pumping speed was 10 times faster than the Sprengel-type
pump and produced vacua down to 1 mPa. However, it required an additional
pump in series because it was able to compress the gas only up to 1/100 of
atmospheric pressure.
The sliding vane rotary vacuum pump was developed between 1904 and
1910, based on an idea of aristocrat Prince Rupprecht, which dated back to 1657.
Gaede optimized these pumps in 1935 by inventing the gas ballast, which
allowed pumping condensable gases as well.
Gaede carefully studied Knudsen’s work, and at a meeting of the German
Physical Society in 1912, introduced his first molecular pump (Fig. 1.15). Gaede
used the finding that any gas molecule hitting a wall stays at its location for a
while and accommodates to the wall before it leaves the same. If therefore a
gas particle hits a fast moving wall it will adopt the velocity of the wall and is
transported in the direction of the motion during its sojourn time. The pumps
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 13

R'
G
Z2 M Z2
W L G W2 L1 W1 Z1 G
Q Q Q
A A T
R L2
P

G
G

8935 A. 8935 B.

Fig. 1.14 Gaede’s mercury-rotation pump. R indicates the

position of the suction port. With kind permission of the Gaede
foundation at Oerlikon Leybold GmbH, Cologne, Germany.

T
S

C B

m C
n
N F
R A
a a
a
F N
A

Fig. 1.15 Gaede’s molecular pump of 1912.

14 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

based on this principle require very high rotor speeds and low clearances of
about 20 µm between the moving wall and the fixed wall. The pump floundered
on these requirements, which were too stringent for the technology available
at the time. In 1958, however, Becker utilized the principle and invented the
turbomolecular pump, which eased the clearance problem.
In the years 1915 and 1916, Gaede and Langmuir developed the mercury
diffusion pump [10]. 12 years later, the oil diffusion pump followed, which
was the most widespread pump until the turbomolecular pump was
developed.
In addition, vacuum measurement also developed further (Fig. 1.16) using
other pressure-dependent properties of gases: Sutherland suggested to use
the viscosity of gases in 1897. Langmuir put this principle into practice

Pumps:
Liquid
pisitons Diffusion pumps Getter pumps

1916 1950 Turbomolecular pumps

1958
Vacuum gauges:
McLeod Triode Bayard-Alpert

Gaede's Extractor
mercury rotational pump
10−6 Gaede's
molecular pump
Sherwood's
diffusion pump
10−8
Minimum pressure (Torr)

Liquid piston pump

Molecular pump
Alpert
10−10 Diffusion pump
1950
Getter or
cryopump
Venema
1958 Benvenuti
10−12 1975
Davis
1962
Habson
10−14 Benvenuti Benvenuti
1964 1993
1977

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Year

Fig. 1.16 Progress in lowest pressures generated and measured in the twentieth century.
Data from [5].
 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology 15

in 1913 using an oscillating quartz fiber. The decrement in amplitude of the

oscillations gave a measure of gas pressure. In 1960, J. W. Beams demonstrated
that the deceleration in rotational frequency of a magnetically suspended steel
ball rotating at about 1 MHz under vacuum could be used as a measure of
pressure. Fremerey optimized this device during the 1970’s and 80’s. Pirani
[11] used the pressure dependence of thermal conductivity and built the
first thermal conductivity gauge in 1906. In 1909, von Baeyer showed that
a triode vacuum tube could be used as a vacuum gauge. Penning invented
the cold-cathode gauge in 1937 in which a gas discharge is established by
crossed electric and magnetic fields. During the Second World War, mass
spectrometers were developed, and they became crucial parts of the weapons
industry.
After World War II, it was generally believed that diffusion pumps would
not be able to generate pressures below 10−8 Torr although the underlying
effect was unknown. All manufacturers’ pumping speed curves showed a
value of zero at this point. The pressure was measured using triode gauges.
During the Physical Electronics Conference in 1947, Nottingham suggested that
the impingement of X-ray photons on the collector of the triode causing
secondary electrons might be the reason for this lower pressure limit. This was
a breakthrough. A competition for a significant improvement of the ion gauge
started, which Nottingham’s own group did not win, to his regret. Instead, in
1950, Bayard and Alpert [12] succeeded with an idea as simple as ingenious
(Fig. 13.48).
Since all vacuum gauges except for the McLeod and the Torricellian tube had
to be calibrated, and because, at the same time, vacuum industry grew to an
important branch (see Chapter 2), independent metrological laboratories were
set up in state-owned institutes in the late 1950s. The first were established
at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in England. The Laboratory for
Vacuum Physics (today: Vacuum Metrology) at the Physikalisch-Technische
Bundesanstalt1) (PTB) in Germany followed in 1966, and in the 1970s the
Vacuum Laboratory at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS; today: NIST) in
the USA.
Coming back to the philosophical considerations at the beginning of this
chapter, let us make a concluding remark on the nature of vacuum from
the point of view of today’s physics [13]: without any doubt, there are
macroscopic areas, e.g., small volumes between galaxies, where there is no
single molecule. For such a volume, the term absolute vacuum was introduced.
We know today, however, that even absolute vacuum is not empty (in terms
of energy). Otherwise, it would not be in accordance with the laws of nature.
A vacuum energy with still unknown nature, which may be related to the
cosmological constant introduced by Einstein, permits particles to be generated
spontaneously by fluctuating quantum fields for short time intervals, even in

1) Translator’s note: German National Metrology

Institute
16 1 The History of Vacuum Science and Vacuum Technology

absolute vacuum. In this sense, there is no space in the world, which is

truly empty.

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