Vendor List
From DoyleGroup
See Usernames for a list of logins to some of these vendors.
Also check out ThomasNet or Direct Industry for a searchable vendor list.
Don't forget about the Black List
Thanks to Stan Cotreau and the DeMille group for helping us to put this together.
Contents
- 1 Buyers guides
- 2 Ablation target preparation and testing
- 3 Radiation equipment
- 4 Chemicals and materials
- 5 Ablation targets
- 5.1 Ceramics
- 5.2 Metals
- 5.3 Magnet Wire
- 5.4 Plastics and Composites
- 5.5 Hardware/Machining Supplies/Fasteners
- 5.6 Razor Blades
- 5.7 Optics
- 5.8 Laser Diodes
- 5.9 PMT
- 5.10 Electronics
- 5.11 Vacuum
- 5.12 Cryogenics
- 5.13 Gases and Flow Control
- 5.14 Quasi-Optical, Microwaves
- 5.15 mm-wave Microwave Components
- 5.16 Optical detectors, PMTs
- 5.17 Coatings, deposition
- 5.18 Electroplating
- 5.19 Diamond-Turned Optics
- 5.20 Actuators and Motion Control
- 5.21 Vibration Isolation
- 5.22 Waterjet
- 5.23 Computers and Computer Hardware
- 5.24 Office Supplies
- 5.25 Food, etc
- 5.26 Black List
Buyers guides
- Physics Today Buyers Guide
- CERN Courier Buyer's Guide
- ThomasNet - Extensive vendor search engine
Ablation target preparation and testing
- Applied Test Systems - high-end materials testing and furnaces
- Futek - Load cells and other sensors
- MTI Corporation - relatively inexpensive materials science research supplies (furnaces, temp. controllers, crucibles, gloveboxes, benchtop presses, diamond blade saws, ball mills, nanopowders...); equipment seems generally reliable though cheap. Technical support is of little help.
- Renco Corporation - sells a wide variety of glovebox gloves, but they're a little laggy on responding to quote requests.
- Sigma-Aldrich - also sells a lot of glovebox gloves and sleeves, and as a "Harvard Marketplace" company, they're very convenient and relatively cheap to order from on HCOM
- Thermo Scientific - general lab supplies, including furnaces (Please see this note before considering buying from them, though!)
Radiation equipment
- For radiation inspection, non-emergency cleanup, and radiation labels and waste bins, contact Ken Walker at first_last@harvard.edu.
- Atlantic Nuclear - radiation safety: shielding, radiation meters, dosimetry
- Ludlum Measurements - exhaustive assortment of survey meters
- Canberra - radiation measurement and safety supplies, including radioisotope samples
Chemicals and materials
- Alfa aesar - chemical supplier
- American Elements -- pretty much the whole periodic table, but don't get too excited - they don't carry a lot of what they list.
- Plasmaterials
- Process Materials
- Refrac systems - Diffusion bonding, hot-pressing
- MP Biomedicals - Cheapest thorium metal powder ever, while supplies last...
- Fisher Scientific
- Sigma Aldrich
- Strem Chemical
- Spectrum Chemical
- VWR
- Pfaltz and Bauer
Ablation targets
- American Elements -- CaF ablation targets
- Sophisticated Alloys - Order-made targets. They can handle pretty much everything, but the lead time is long.
Ceramics
See also: #Chemicals_and_materials
- McMaster
- Cercom Ceramics
- CoorsTek ceramic tubes etc.
- Kyocera - expensive
- Marketech - will do almost anything, but take ~1 week to send quotes
- Orton Ceramics - supplier for hobby or industrial ceramic making, carries pyrometric cones
- Progressive Technology - ceramic tubes etc.
- Stratamet - will do small custom jobs. Talk to Mark Wesson. Tell him Sarah (Bickman, ex-DeMille group) sent you.
- Zircar Zirconia - refractory ceramics in various forms, mainly alumina and zirconia; also some furnaces
- Technical Products - Large selection of ceramics and plastics. Great selection of Macor.
- Astro Met
- Morgan Technical Ceramics
- Cadence Inc., formerly Specialty Blades, has a large selection of fancy razor blades, including ceramics.
Metals
See also: #Chemicals_and_materials
- ESPI - expensive, but has everything
- Goodfellow
- Rembar- Good for Tantalum, Tungsten etc
- Hagstoz - Gold and precious metals, usually cheap
- Refining Systems - Gold and precious metals
- Hauser and Miller - Even cheaper gold and precious metals
- Allfoils - "UHV Aluminum Foil"
- Sophisticated alloys
- Parker Steel - Metric metals (not just steel). Tell Gary Bartlett that Stan sent you.
- Copper.org Data on copper alloy compositions
- Copper and brass sales - THE copper and brass supplier. Doesn't always sell small quantities. Ask for Jeremy Jennings, First.last@thyssenkrupp.com
- Sequoia Copper and Brass - Cheap copper and brass. Sells small quantities at reasonable prices, but might take a while.
- Online Metals - Good selection, fast shipping, reasonable prices on most things. DO NOT BUY COPPER HERE... the price is inflated by a factor of 2-3 compared to Sequoia or Copper and Brass.
- McMaster - Good selection, reasonable prices. Don't buy if you really need a specific alloy of a metal, since they never provide any sort of material certification.
- Brunner Enterprises - Good source for anodized aluminum.
- Turner Steel - Steel
- Ed Fagan - Invar, Molybdenum, Tungsten, Tantalum, Nickel
- Admiral Metals - Aluminum, S.S., brass, beryllium, copper
- Yarde Metals - Large diameter tubes
- Tube Service - Large diameter tubes
- T.W. Metals - Tubing, aluminum, stainless, nickel
- Southern Aluminum Finishing - Aluminum sales; will do custom anodizing for good prices.
Magnet Wire
Insist on desired weight to be wound on a single spool for both suppliers.
- Small Tube Products - raw tubing
- S & W Wire Company - insulator
Welding
Ramsay Welding - Can do aluminum welding. Has Stan's seal of approval.
Plastics and Composites
- McMaster
- Technical Products - Large selection of ceramics and plastics.
- Curbell Plastics
- Patriot Plastics
Hardware/Machining Supplies/Fasteners
- McMaster
- MSC - When McMaster just won't do
- RAM mounts - Mounts for scopes and other instruments.
- Vlier - Screws with Springs inside and more.
- Air Incorporated - 80/20 supplier. Phone: 800-341-2800. Best to have the cut numbers and location codes (from an 80/20 catalog) ready for any anchor fastener counterboring, etc., before you call.
- Amazing Magnets - Permanent magnets
- K&J Magnetics - Large selection of rare-earth magnets.
- Olander - Helicoils, including phosphor bronze and other specialty materials. Don't bother with the website, just call with a part number and tell them the material.
- Before ordering, it helps to have a part number from a helicoil manufacturer, such as Chrislynn Inserts or Emhart Teknologies. If you need non-magnetic helicoils quickly, MSC sells titanium helicoils in many common sizes.
- Solon Manufacturing Belleville spring washers in specialty materials, including phosphor bronze
- United Titanium Titanium fasteners
- Mutual screw Brass (C260) and silicon bronze fasteners
- E&T Fasteners PEEK screws and other exotic plastics. Can even get them vented!
- Accurate Fasteners Local fastener distributor
Razor Blades
- Cadence Inc., formerly Specialty Blades, has a large selection of razor blades in all shapes and materials.
Optics
Essentials
- Thorlabs
- CVI
- New Focus
- Newport - Excellent damage threshold for price
- Alpine Research Optics - Harmonic separators & other optics w/ great specs and low prices. Speak with Mike Ellison.
- Casix - dirt cheap, long lead times?
- conoptics - Isolators
- Edmund optics sales@edmundoptics.com
- Optosigma - windows
- Esco Products-unusually fast and inexpensive for custom optics jobs, proven reliable. Also good selection of stock optics, especially cheap windows, lenses, etc
Frequency-Doubling Crystals
Acousto-Optic and Electro-Optic Modulators
- NEOS - AOMs
- Intraaction - AOMs
- Brimrose AOMs
- EO Space Fiber phase modulators (electro-optic modulators), with V_pi as low as ~ 5 V !
- Advr Inc. Electro-optic modulators
- Newport Electro-optic modulators
Specialty
- Fiberoptic Systems - Custom fiber optic bundles, including high vacuum, non-ferrous, high NA. Great prices.
- Rocky Mountain Instruments - custom coatings, custom lenses, UV specialists, fast service
- Research Electro Optics - High end optics
- Advanced Thin Films - custom jobs
- Tower Optical - waveplates
- EO tech - Isolators
- PI action - CCD cameras
- Semrock - Filters + MaxMirror
- Intor - cheap interference filters
- Uniblitz - shutters
- Andover - colored glass filters
- Omega - stock + custom interference filters
- Coherent - Tell them you want the 'Family Discount' & Get 20% Off all laser measurement products. For problems contact service manager: rose.medina@coherent.com (408) 764-4426
- OFR - fiber optics and isolators
- Technical Glass - Quartz rods, discs, tubes, etc.
- St. Gobain Crystals - custom crystalline optics
- Standa - mostly optomechanics
- Expla - laser systems, OPOs, some components
- Optometrics - diffraction gratings
- Argyle Optics - custom stuff might be cheap but standard optics are also custom made = expensive
- Vere Optics lab accessories
- Tempotec- Chinese Company...like Casix or casix affiliate?
- Mightex - CCD cameras
- Siskiyou - Unusual optomechanics: top-drive flexures & stages, etc.
- Optical fiber fault checker
- Laser Components - Both custom and stocked cavity mirrors
- Photonic Cleaning Optics cleaning supplies for astronomy, including 'First Contact' goop.
- Laser SOS Flashlamps, filters, parts for Minilite/Surelite, YAG lasers.
- Nihon Tokushu Kogaku Jushi Fresnel lenses up to f/0.2
- Fresnel Tech Custom and specialty Fresnel lenses
- Custom Scientific Flats, windows, fibers and coatings. They made the EDM field plates: 18" x 8", < 5 lambda flat with conducting & AR coatings.
- Thin Film Labs Custom AR coating, other kinds of wacky coatings, *extremely fast* turnaround. Yale recommended.
- LayerTec Cheap yet good quality cavity mirrors
- NSG America all-glass GRIN fiber collimators
- Apogee Instruments Low-noise CCD cameras
- Electrophysics Objective lenses for C-mount cameras/imagers
- Fiber Optics Store - Various fiber optics supplies. Sells fiber-coupled laser pointers for cheap, which are very useful for aligning coupling/collimating lenses.
- Radiant Dyes - They make dye lasers, service old Coherent dye lasers (including 899) and new Sirah dye lasers, build economical opto-mechanics, and have excellent service!
- MPB Communications Inc. Yb fiber laser (seed) + Raman fiber amplifier system at 1030-1340 nm; also capable of 515-670 nm with SHG module; ~Watt level power
Laser Diodes
- Sacher
- Eagleyard - AR coated laser diodes
- Roither Lasertechnik - Laser diodes, LEDs, Optics,
- Toptica - Lasers, AR Coated Diodes
- Intelite/Meshtel - Non-AR Coated Diodes, Sacher gets some of their diodes here before AR Coating
- Power Technology - Single Mode Diodes, TAs, DFBs and more
- m2K - Tapered Amplifiers and More
- FLT Laser - Huge selection including DFBs from many suppliers in addition to their own line
- Nanoplus - DFBs
- RPMCLasers - Single Mode diodes and more, not AR
- Intenseco - I think only Multimode / Broad Area
- qPhotonics - Single Mode Laser diodes and more. 895-915 nm and 1050-1080 nm diodes are offered with AR coating (for $300-400)
- Opnext - Make a lot of Non-AR coated diodes
- Axcel Photonics - Common NIR Laser Diodes
- Lab351 - Russian Laser Diode Company
- Wavelength Electronics - Cheap and convenient current & temperature controllers.
- Oclaro (formerly Bookham) - High power (>600mW) 980nm pump laser modules, fiber coupled.
- EM4, Inc. - High power (600mW) 980nm pump laser modules, fiber coupled.
- Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH) - Custom-made high-brightness sources (e.g. RW, DFB, DBR, tapered, tapered with integrated gratings) near 630 nm
- Innolume - High power IR diodes.
PMT
Hamamatsu PMT contact Rich at (908) 252-7728 Fax: (732) 537-3678
Electronics
- Mouser Electronics
- Digikey
- Analog Devices
- Apex Microtechnologies - High Voltage/Power Op-Amps
- Lansing Instruments - Really Nice Enclosures
- Emco High Voltage - DC-DC Converters
- Allied Electronics
- L-Com - Cheap connectors/adaptors
- Powell Electronics - Hard to find/out of stock stuff
- Meritronics - Board Assembly
- Pasternack - Quality BNC cables
- Acopian - Supreme power supplies
- Krohn-Hite Ultra-precise DC sources & other precision stuff
- Phoenix of Chicago Good selection of connectors. Non-magnetic D-sub connectors.
- FCT Non-magnetic connectors of all sorts.
- Souriau Non-magnetic D-sub connectors with crimp contacts.
- Proto-advantage SMT to DIP adapters
- Microconnex Flexible circuits
- Air Electro - Connectors, including Detoronics
- EM Power RF RF Amplifiers
Sensors
- Micromagnetics Magnetoresistance-based B-field sensors
- Honeywell Anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) magnetic sensors. Noise is < 1 uG/rt-Hz @ 10 Hz. ~20$ each.
Vacuum
- Manuals from lots of companies for lots of old pumps & controllers
Essentials
- LDS Vacuum Shopper - fast + cheap. This should be your first stop for vacuum stuff!
- Duniway stockroom Cheap, good selection of used vacuum equipment
- Huntington They carry electrically insulating teflon KF clamps and centering rings.
- Kurt J. Lesker
- MDC
- A & N Corp - Feedthroughs, flanges etc. These guys have the right Quick-Disconnect (Ultra-Torr) fittings for liquid helium dewars.
- Valve & Fitting - Distributor for Swagelok. To get prices from the Swagelok website, see Usernames.
Specialty
- InstruTech - Makes compact, digital convectron and ion gauges at good prices.
- AVS Technical Resources - Useful calculator for conversion factors, pump/gauge ranges
- Varian (Now part of Agilent) High quality dry scroll and turbo pumps at competitive prices. Now a division of Agilent. Contact alan.bird at agilent.com
- Precision Cryo Ask for Dick Gummer. They made the EDM beam source chamber.
- Kimball physics - special (cool) chambers
- Sharon - custom chambers
- Key High
- vacuum generators Best quality UHV all-metal valves.
- Insulator Seal - Feedthroughs
- Apiezon Greases and Waxes
- EVAC Vacuum - Unique! Standard QF/ISO hardware, but made out of glass(!), aluminum, etc.
- accuglass products - Unusually nice selection of feedthroughs, in-vacuum electrical connectors, hardware, etc. Prices better than Lesker.
- MPF Products - Similar to accuglass for electrical feedthroughs, but also has nice selection of viewports
- Atlas UHV - UHV grade welded aluminum vacuum chambers. Made the EDM interaction chamber.
- Heating Tapes
- Minco heaters Foil heaters with kapton & copper, non-magnetic
- All Foils UHV clean aluminum foil
- Pfeiffer Vacuum
- Air Electro - Connectors, including Detoronics (vacuum compatible electrical feedthroughs)
- RBD Instruments - Coated vacuum windows
Cryogenics
- Cryodepot
- Cryofab
- Janis
- Lakeshore Cryotronics Contact Dave Shain: shaininc AT comcast.net
- Oxford Instruments
- Cryomech - Pulse tube coolers.
- Calgon Carbon - Activated charcoal for Sorbs
- discountcryo - Great selection of cryo accessories, including small hand dewars.
- Metalized Products - Superinsulation (NRC-2)
Gases and Flow Control
- MKS Instruments - Flow controllers. To get a login to see prices, go to Usernames.
- Laminar Technologies - Sells used MKS flow controllers. The Harvard cleanroom manager (Noah Clay) claims that used flow controllers are better (since they are screened for infant death), and of course they are cheaper.
Quasi-Optical, Microwaves
mm-wave Microwave Components
- Quinstar - Large selection of waveguide and coax, ask for Sage Kuno
- Miteq - Largest supplier (and stock) but more expensive
- Penn Engineering - Raw waveguide stock, flanges
- Atwall - Raw waveguide stock, flanges
- UBS - Raw waveguide stock, flanges
Optical detectors, PMTs
- Electron Tubes
- Burle
- Hamamatsu
- RoentDek - Makes MCPs and readout electronics
- DelMar Photonics - MCP
- Beam Imaging - MCP directly coupled to a camera through a fiberoptic rod.
- Primer on MCPs (broken link)
Coatings, deposition
- AIMCAL - Assoc. of Metallizers, Coaters & Laminators FAQ (broken link)
- Spectrum coatings>
- Helia Photonics - Ion-assisted deposition
- Ionedge - Ion-assisted deposition
- Thin Films Inc. - Sputtering, Evaporation, Lithography - flexible small shop
- Thin Film Labs - specialize in optical component coatings
- Koral Labs - thin film deposition + vacuum furnace stuff
- IJ Research - ceramics, deposition, lithography - flexible, associated with USCB, IIRC
- Sophisticated alloys - deposition targets, but "we don't do coatings"
- Process Materials (broken link)
- Sputtering target suppliers
- Sputtering Materials Inc
Electroplating
- Paramount Metal Finishing - Rack Electroplating - reasonable prices
- AMZ Manufacturing - High quality electroplating
- Metal Finishing Technologies - Various plating services
- Epner Technology - Fancy gold electroplating - expensive, high-tech
Diamond-Turned Optics
- II-VI Infrared - good CO2 optics; possibly worst url ever
- Corning NetOptix - used to be OFC Diamond Turning
- Kugler - German precision optics company, ja
- Kaleido Technology - in Denmark
Actuators and Motion Control
- Newmark Systems
- Arrick Robotics
- Parker Hannfin Motion Control
- Cyber Research Motion Control
- Techno Linear Motion Systems
- Velmex Low cost, large travel motorized stages
- Aerotech - Precision stages
- Noliac - Large selection of piezos, including rings
- Micromechatronics - Re-seller for Noliac, other piezos.
Vibration Isolation
- EAR Specialty Composites ==> Jan's smelly Blue Stuff = #6309-0026
Waterjet
- Barton Mines Garnet abrasive for the waterjet. Details here.
- OMAX Waterjets, and supplies. Details here
Computers and Computer Hardware
- Dell Go to www.computers.harvard.edu, and select Dell departmental purchase. You will have to register; use your fas.harvard.edu email. Configure your computer (you can get any system, or a "Harvard standard" system). When checking out you will have to select a shipping address - be careful, if you select "17 Oxford St" from the dropdown list it will probably have somebody else's name attached to it. If this is your first time ordering this way, you will have to manually enter the address with your name as the recipient. For future purchases, find the "17 Oxford St" entry with your name as the recipient. Choose "pay with credit terms". The same warning about the drop-down list applies for the payment address; be sure to select the "Jefferson Business Ofc" or something like that; if you select other addresses with "Jefferson" in the name it will go to somebody else (for example a secretary in the HETG).
- Dell's Harvard Pricing WARNING: they are not necessarily cheaper than dell.com
- NewEgg Computer accessories. WARNING: they do not accept POs.
- Lenovo Harvard Pricing Departmental and Personal
- For CDW order, send PO to Mecca Nnacheta meccnna@cdw.com
Office Supplies
- Office Depot Fax 800-685-5010
- B&H - HCOM marketplace vendor with lots of office supplies, including printer cartridges of all descriptions
Food, etc
Black List
Think twice before buying from these vendors.