Additively manufactured ultra-high vacuum chamber for portable quantum technologies

Additive manufacturing is having a dramatic impact on research and industry across multiple sectors, but the production of additively manufactured systems for ultra-high vacuum applications has so far proved elusive and widely been considered impossible. We demonstrate the first additively manufactured vacuum chamber operating at a pressure below 10−10 mbar, measured via an ion pump current reading, and show that the corresponding upper limit on the total gas output of the additively manufactured material is 3.6 × 10−13 mbar l/(s mm2). The chamber is produced from AlSi10Mg by laser powder bed fusion. Detailed surface analysis reveals that an oxidised, Mg-rich surface layer forms on the additively manufactured material and plays a key role in enabling vacuum compatibility. Our results not only enable lightweight, compact versions of existing systems, but also facilitate rapid prototyping and unlock hitherto inaccessible options in experimental science by removing the constraints that traditional manufacturing considerations impose on component design. This is particularly relevant to the burgeoning field of portable quantum sensors — a point that we illustrate by using the chamber to create a magneto-optical trap for cold 85Rb atoms — and will impact significantly on all application areas of high and ultra-high vacuum.