The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded a Purchase Order to Kurt J Lesker Co, a woman-owned small business, on September 23, 2026, for a custom high-vacuum chamber with a firm-fixed-price ceiling of $56,163.83 under a Total Small Business set-aside.
The chamber is specified for NIST's Nanoscale Device Characterization Division's extreme-ultraviolet diffractometry and spectroscopic ellipsometry capabilities for semiconductor process control. The chamber construction requires aluminum endpieces and stainless steel (304L or 316L) body configured with one DN200CF 10" Conflat port, 13 DN100CF 6" Conflat ports, 17 DN40-CF 2.75" Conflat ports, 7 ISO160-F ports, and 3 ISO63-F ports, with leak-tight performance to 1×10⁻⁹ TorrL/s and room temperature base pressures below 7.5×10⁻⁷ Torr. Delivery is FOB Destination to Williston, Florida, with an ultimate completion date of May 5, 2027. Payment is 100% upon successful installation and acceptance testing.