Peter P. Chow

Peter Pui-Tak Chow was born in China and moved to Hong Kong in 1957. He attended Loyola College in Montreal, Canada and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry in 1966. He met Josephine Lo soon after graduation in Hong Kong and married her in 1967. At the University of Minnesota, Peter pursued his Ph.D in Physics under Professor Clayton Giese, graduating in 1978. Josephine eventually became an Assistant Professor in Anesthesiology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Their son Loren, was born in 1968

While working on his PhD, Peter worked at Honeywell and continued there after graduation. Later he moved to Perkin-Elmer Corporation, a local technology company. His dissertation, “Scattering Experiments with Fast Pulsed Molecular Beams”, focused in part on the importance of vacuum chambers in experimental set ups. While working in the electronics sector, Peter became an expert on molecular beam epitaxy, which uses scattered beams in a vacuum to deposit thin films, primarily compound semiconductors. In 1987 he left to co-found a company, Superior Vacuum Technology. In 1993 he split off from that company and founded SVT Associates in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, of which he remained nominal head until his death. Starting with his work at the University of Minnesota, Peter would author more than 170 publications, lecture at dozens of industry conferences worldwide and be an inventor on eight patents across his 50-year career.

In 2012 Peter was diagnosed with brain cancer and given about 24 months to live. Yet, he continued to run the company, remaining its leader, chief strategist and main salesperson until 2017, when his. son Loren stepped in to reorganize the company. Peter’s cancer went into remission and returned twice, but he eventually succumbed in August of 2022. He was preceded in death by his wife Joesphine and his daughter-in-law Jenny.  He is survived by his son Loren and his two grandsons, Dylan and Tyler.