175 Years of Leybold
Innovative companies often have a rich history. Founded by Ernst Leybold in Cologne in 1850, the German vacuum specialist Leybold is one that has achieved many pioneering technical milestones. Now, in 2025, the manufacturer is celebrating its 175th anniversary.
Leybold’s core competencies include developing and manufacturing standardised, individual solutions for vacuum generation and process gas conveying, as well as customer-specific vacuum systems. The vacuum pioneer’s components, systems, and services play an important role in many areas worldwide, such as compound semiconductors, industrial coating, analysis, and research and development processes.
The entrepreneur Ernst Leybold laid the foundations for the company when he moved from Bavaria to the Rhineland in 1850. By registering the company in Cologne, Leybold became the founder of industrial vacuum technology. Even after the sale of the company in 1870, which continued to operate under the name 'E. Leybold's Nachfolger', his vision remained intact.
His successors achieved a breakthrough in vacuum technology in 1906 in collaboration with Wolfgang Gaede: for example, with the basic principle of the turbomolecular pump (1911) and the application of the diffusion pump (1913), both of which are still in use today. The gas ballast device for pumping out vapors, patented in 1935, is also still in use.
Vacuum metallurgy began in 1913: Wilhelm Rohn, head of the physical testing laboratory at W.C. Heraeus GmbH, developed a process for melting high-purity metals in a vacuum in Hanau, which was patented in 1918. In 1931, Wilhelm Carl Heraeus succeeded in vaporising metals on glass, thus paving the way for vacuum coating technology. Subsequently, vacuum technology was increasingly used in process engineering.
Today with its application expertise and the quality of its products and services, Leybold says it has a significant influence on the efficiency of processes and value chains. These include metallurgy, automotive and coating industries, solar tech, compound semiconductors, displays, as well as food applications, analytics and processes for the production of lithium-ion batteries for electromobility.
In September 2016, the Swedish company Atlas Copco AB, based in Stockholm, acquired 100 percent of Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum, which is now part of Atlas Copco's Vacuum Technique division. This multi-brand group has around 53,000 employees and customers in over 180 countries.
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