High Performance Cleanrooms at PSI

(Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, July 01, 2013)

For highly sensitive fabrication processes for components such as x-ray lenses and detectors, the Paul Scherrer Institute is operating three cleanrooms. In there, only one particle per two liters of air can be found - a hundred thousand times less than in a conventional room. Quite an effort, given that a person who is not moving gives off 100,000 particles per minute, the majority of which are tiny flakes of skin. Consequently, special overalls with head and foot covers are mandatory, pencils and normal paper are forbidden and a powerful ventilation system replaces the air in the room completely every two minutes.