High Voltage Feedthroughs Save the Day | MPF

Do You Need More KVs in Your High Voltage Feedthrough?

When MPF opened its doors in 1994, those of us in the ultra high vacuum (UHV) industry were lucky if we could deliver more than 5 KVs into a chamber. 

As we’re sure you’re aware, KVs stand for “kilovolts.”  One kilovolt of power equals 1,000 volts. That’s a lot of power. To give some context, the drying machine that makes your socks toasty and ready to wear uses roughly 240 volts — dryers are likely the  highest-voltage appliance in your household.

So, 1 KV equals more than the voltage of four dryers running at once. That’s a lot of freaking socks. 

When it comes to high voltage power feedthroughs, they typically come standard in 5KV and 10KV. Again, this is a ton of voltage. A 10,000 volt feedthrough is no slouch.

But over the course of the last several years, MPF’s customers have come to demand even more voltage. 10,000 volts just isn’t enough to get the job done — we’ll discuss what these “jobs” are below. Our clients ask: “Can you provide a 50 KV or even a 100 KV high voltage feedthrough?”

Our answer: “Of course. We have the best team of engineers and UHV custom components on either side of the Mississippi. If we can’t do it, no one can.”

Note: MPF not only has the capability to manufacture power feedthroughs with a ton of voltage, but they are also constructed from an Alumina Oxide ceramic material for dielectric standoff. Unlike the other guys, our standard feedthroughs are purpose-built for high performance.

Why On Earth Would Anyone Need 100,000 Volts for Their UHV Application?

Fun fact: did you know that the highest voltage ever produced was 1,000,000? Again, we want to put this into perspective. A million volts is pure crazy sauce, but even producing a tenth of that in one of our patented ceramic-to-metal power feedthroughs is difficult. 

At the same time, we wouldn’t offer custom solutions for your biggest challenge if we weren’t serious about it. 

The reason we go the extra mile in manufacturing feedthroughs with the highest possible voltage is because they save lives. 

                                                                               How?

                                                    Two words: stereotactic radio-surgery.

But, let’s back up a bit. One of the primary reasons clients come to us with requests for power feedthroughs with higher voltage is because they want greater pixelation.

The more volts you can blast into a vacuum chamber, the higher number of pixels you can achieve. And a greater number of pixels gives you higher-resolution images. The term “resolution” is equivalent to the number of pixels.

Here it is as a simple formula: more volts = greater number of pixels = higher resolution images.

This leads us back to why particular clients, especially those in the medical technology sector, need high-voltage feedthroughs of 50 or 100 KVs.

There are several ways that oncologists treat cancer in patients: chemotherapy, surgery, and what’s known as stereotactic radio-surgery (SRS), among other procedures. 

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) sends precisely-focused beams of radiation to treat cancerous tumors in patients’ brains, necks, lungs, livers, and spines, as well as other parts of the body. 

Although it’s referred to as surgery, SRS is really not surgery in the traditional sense: doctors are not making incisions. Instead, stereotactic radio-surgery relies on 3D imaging to target high doses of radiation to affected areas. 

Similar to other forms of radiation, SRS damages the DNA of targeted cells, both limiting their ability to reproduce and shrinking them. It’s a superior form of treatment for most patients because it is a minimally-invasive alternative to surgery.

SRS procedures depend entirely on knowing the precise location of a tumor. The 3D image that the X-ray shows must be pinpoint accurate in order to deliver the targeted radiation therapy to the site of the tumor and cancerous cells.

And this is where MPF comes in: we don’t make the X-ray machines hospitals buy, we enable the X-ray machines hospitals buy to take a clear picture of the area(s) impacted by cancer. 

Remember: the more voltage you’re able to introduce to a chamber, the higher the resolution will be on the image you capture. In this case, the higher the resolution of the image, the more effective targeted cancer therapy will be.  

So, yes, we take the challenge to produce power feedthroughs of the highest voltage very seriously at MPF because on the other side of our technology is often a patient waiting for a life-saving cancer treatment.

Contact Us to Learn More About Our Custom Feedthroughs and Other UHV Components Today