Clive Corlett, Engineering Manager at Kore Technology gives his views on Kore Special Projects.
Clive Corlett, Engineering Manager.
Q: "How would you describe Kore?"
A: "Kore Technology is, above all, an innovative company...
Kore has a portfolio of unique and patented vacuum scientific instrumentation. Our products integrate state of the art electronics, mechanics and physics for use in previously un- imagined applications. As well as designing "one-off" machines, our in-house designed standard products include:-
A bench-top TOF-SIMS for routine surface analysis applications.
A fully hand-portable TOF mass spectrometer for in situ gas analysis.
Fast timing electronics for ion and photon counting experiments.
Add-on reflectron analyser for laser ionisation studies
Q: "Why do you think Kore's special projects are successful?"
A: "We have a Team with a proven track record...
Kore's highly skilled workforce come from various backgrounds, having previously worked for Cambridge Consultants Limited, Kratos, Shimadzu, Cambridge Mass Spectrometry, PHI, Grace and GEC. In the past 14 years we have been singularly responsible for the clean sheet design of:
- 11 scientific instruments:-
- TOF, magnetic sector, wafer coating.
- 11 sample manipulation stages:-
- automated, cryogenic cooling, wafer handling, sub-micron resolution.
- 6 ion / electron sources:-
- liquid metal, liquid metal caesium, duoplasmatron, 100 keV e-beam.
- making Kore the most prolific vacuum scientific design consultancy today. Facilities include:-
- In-house specialisms
- Ion and electron optics, applied physics, fast electronics, software, mechanics.
- UHV engineering
- Tribology, clean pumping, high tension, sub-micron positioning, cryogenics, thermodynamics.
- Workshops
- Fast prototyping facility, design, build and test.
Q: "What is a typical project?"
Many contracts placed with Kore have been "Can't be done" projects. Typically Kore is involved when our customer has been told their project cannot be done by one of the large instrument manufacturers. A good example is:-
The 100keV electron gun
The European Space Agency commissions IRF in Sweden to produce electron spectrometers for use in the upper atmosphere and deep space. IRF require a test source to calibrate their equipment prior to flight. Kore was the only company in the world who was able to take on the challenge of an electron gun with such exceptional dynamic range. The gun emits electrons in parallel paths to the nearest 0.2° over an 8cm diameter beam, with a current density continuously variable over seven orders of magnitude. One of the challenges was to keep the electron trajectories parallel over the full range of energies (100 eV to 100 keV) without compromising a third specification - that of uniform current density over the full beam diameter.
Other good examples of "Can't be done" projects could be drawn from the various projects we have undertaken that require complex mechanical systems in an ultra-high-vacuum environment, for example a zero backlash turntable designed for Queens University Belfast, or the rotating xy stage for depth profiling work.
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Last updated: Tuesday, September 20, 2005, 16:00
© Kore Technology Limited 2005