In focus Large scale vacuum

operation and upgrade: the life-cycle of large-scale scientific vacuum systems informs the exclusive coverage in this CERN CourierIn Focus report. Think technology innovation and implementation on an ambitious canvas like ITER’s sprawling vacuum ecosystem, a core building block in the international research effort to transform nuclear fusion into an at-scale energy proposition (p20). Beyond the ITER campus, the “grand challenge” of fusion is supported by a network of top-tier research partners – among them the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Vacuum Lab and its holistic R&D model, knitting together fundamental vacuum science and integrated process development (p5). Elsewhere, the focus shifts to vacuum deployment in a very different big-science setting – Sweden’s MAX IV synchrotron laboratory (p29) – while there are reports from CERN on the vacuum team’s impressive upgrade and refit programme during Long Shutdown 2 (p25) as well as sustained advances in the use of plasma processing for surface modification of vacuum subsystems and components (p11). This In Focus report is vacuum writ large.