Well, back in November of last year we actually made it to 15 years of operation, but 2024 ended up being our best and busiest year, so we really didn’t have much time to think about it. Meaglow is a small business quietly researching and developing a new generation of patented plasma sources with reduced oxygen contamination. Most of our sales are to the Atomic Layer Deposition community, but our plasma sources have also been used for etching, sample modification and plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition.
Looking back over the years, we’ve now produced over 140 hollow cathode plasma sources, with sales in 15 different countries. 7 of those sources have had nominal diameters of 12″ or bigger, and most of those were aluminum based. We wrote a paper about that, see it here. On the other side of the scale, we now produce the Series 16, a mini-plasma source originally developed for a NASA space flight experiment (see image below), but also a cost effective plasma source for small research systems.
Over the years our reputation has grown, in 2023 we won the RBC Northwestern Ontario Innovative Company of the Year award. Meaglow has also had research contracts with three Silicon Valley based companies, most of those being quite recent, and we’ve had sales to over a dozen original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), though, of course, we still supply our standard and custom made sources to numerous universities and research establishments.
We’ve also produced three highly customized plasma based deposition systems, we avoid competing with our OEM customers, but have undertaken the build of equipment that no one else can or will do. The above picture was taken at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where late last year the team installed a 12″ plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition system, with fluorine plasma compatibility, UHV vacuum system, a Hastelloy C276 12″ hollow cathode source and a turbopump that can operate with up to 2000 sccm of gas flow. Not another like it anywhere in the world. NASA will be able to do good things with it. That’s Dr. Javier Del Hoyo of NASA in the left foreground of the picture.
Anyway there’s a bit of time now, so we’ll plan a small celebration, something to replace that end of year Christmas party we were too busy to make happen, and we’ll toast another 15 years to come. Thanks to all our customers, our agents (who now cover 7 regions) and all those who have supported us through the years. We very much appreciate all of you!