Faraday Laboratories
Manufacturer of Quartz Crystal Microbalance Instruments
Dan McKeown, president of Faraday Laboratories, holds the patent for the invention of the Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM). Faraday Laboratories is a leader in the research and development of quartz crystal instruments used to measure contamination in clean rooms, thermal-vacuum chambers and space. All significant advancement in this field has resulted from the work that began in 1957 with the invention of the QCM. Faraday Laboratories was incorporated in California on June 13, 1967.
- First use of the Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) to measure surface erosion in the laboratory (1959)
- First flight of a QCM in space on Discoverer 26 to measure surface erosion for the Atlas Missile Program (1961)
- Design and construction of the Quartz Crystal Micro-Meteorite Detector (QCMD) (1962)
- QCM Patent submitted in 1962, awarded in 1966
- Design of the Quartz Crystal Energy Transfer Probe (QCEP) flown on OGO-F, 1968 (designated OGO-6 after launch in 1969)
- QCEP 's flight package (1968)
- QCEP Patent awarded in 1969
- First flight of QCM's in space on OGO-6 to monitor surface contamination (1969)
- Design and construction of the flight Quartz Crystal Reflectometer QCR (1970)
- Design and construction of the Thermoelectric Quartz Crystal Microbalance (TQCM) for use in clean rooms and thermal vacuum chambers (1972)
- Design and construction of the Cryogenic Quartz Crystal Microbalance (CQCM) (1974)
- NASA Certificate of Recognition for design of the TQCM (1975)
- Design and construction of TQCM and CQCM Shuttle flight systems that were flown as part of MSFC IECM to establish cargo by contamination specifications (1977)
- NASA Certificate of Recognition for design of the CQCM Radiator (1979)
- CQCM flight system for flight in the USAF SCATHA spacecraft with electrically grounded radiator for operation in the solar plasma (1977)
- Design and construction of the Quartz Crystal Pyrheliometer (QCP) completed in 1979
- Quartz Crystal Particle Microbalance (QCPM) flown on Shuttle(STS-32) (1989)
- Flight on the SOHO spacecraft of in line doublet crystal set that significantlyreduced the effect of solar radiation of the frequency stability of a QCM (1995)
