Miniaturized vacuum gauges

Due to the rapid advancement in microsystem and micromachining technology in the past several years, the most important common pressure measuring principles have been successfully applied in miniaturized vacuum sensors. In addition to MicroPiranis(R), microstructured gas friction gauges and miniaturized capacitance manometers have been developed recently too, whose dimensions are already in the millimeter and partly in the micrometer range. Exceptions in this development are ionization gauges which, due to their basic measuring principle, cannot be arbitrarily miniaturized without substantial. restrictions in their operating performance. The article gives a rough summary of the present level of development of selected types of miniaturized vacuum gauges and points out limits and causes for the restricted miniaturizability of certain total pressure vacuum gauges. (C) 2004 American Vacuum Society.