[null and void]

If you've ever worked with high vacuum equipment you know that to get to 10^-11 torr or higher vacuum you need to keep things scrupulously clean. Not only can bits of crud keep seals from mating properly, they can also deposit out in some of the most amazing places, and they outgas 'sorbed water and organics.

[Moltke]

Yep, worked with HV and UHV in a heavy ion accelerator lab for 6 years...believe me, with a dozen grad students around it was nothing close to clean room conditions. :-)

Anything that went *into* the experimenting chambers was cleaned with acetone and handled with gloves, of course.

A lab isn’t (usually) a manufacturing facility where specimens are transported around inbetween the different stages.