QCM Research
Lake Forest, California 92630 USA

QCM Research is a small select corporation, located against the beautiful coastal range in the Saddleback Valley of Southern California.

We specialize in the design and manufacture of very high quality Quartz Crystal Microbalances, known as QCMs. Our instruments are used in high technology laboratories around the world and in space for applications such as detecting contamination on optical surfaces, measuring outgassing and determining constituents by means of thermogravimetric analysis.

QCM Research has been in the forefront of QCM technology since being formed in 1985. The original personnel have been working with the technology involved since the mid-sixties. We have developed twenty-two distinct QCM sensor models and are presently marketing nine of these. We have International Representatives in seven foreign countries. In 1975 we were selected to receive an IR-100 award for "One of the 100 Most-Significant New Technical Products of the Year" for the MK8 QCM™, which has just recently evolved into the MK21 QCM™. We have maintained a high standard of excellence even while experiencing a rapid growth period, insuring the continued health of the company and the continual improvement of the products we design and produce.

Sensors

• CQCMs or Cryogenic QCMs, have the ability to operate successfully below the temperatures of liquid nitrogen (to -262ºC). They have an internal heater which can be used to keep them at a constant temperature or to boil off surface films from the sensor crystals. Usually smaller in size CQCMs use less power than other QCMs and are readily adaptable to space environments.

• TQCMs are Thermally controlled QCMs. They have an internal Peltier heat exchanger which can either heat or cool the QCM to aid in both collecting condensables and then boiling them off later.

• The Mark 20 TQCM™ is a miniaturized version of the standard TQCM in the industry, the Mark 10 TQCM.

• The Mark 21 Miniature QCM™ is a very small, passive QCM.

• The Vacuum Outgassing/Deposition Kinetics Apparatus (VODKA™) is a turn-key test chamber for performing standardized ASTM E1559 testing.

Controllers

• The Model 2000 Data/Acquisition Controller™ is a lab controller that can be configured to control up to 12 QCM Sensors.

• Flight Controllers include the FEU (Flight Electronics Unit) and the newest unit, the Model 3000 QCM Sensor System.