Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Background
Standard Bolometer
Methods
Results
Why Cryogenics?
Electrical resistance measurements were made on replica heat switch and successful
switching was demonstrated
Resistance as a function of drive coil current at different temperatures is shown
below
Greater electrical resistance Greater thermal conductance
Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerators (ADRs) are the only devices for cooling
below 1 K in micro-gravity environments.
Demagnetizing the field applied to a paramagnetic salt causes the salt to cool due to
the magnetocaloric effect
Sharp onset of
electrical resistance at
critical current
Electrical resistance measurements showing switching at critical current
An IIB uses a superconducting heat switch to control the conductance between the
absorber and low-temperature heat sink
'(( '*
G is no longer limited and switch can be closed periodically to dump heat
Temperature of absorber is measured using a non-dissipative thermometer such as
a magnetic penetration depth thermometer
For very small G,
t 1
t Poptical
T =
C (P
0
optical
G (T THS )) dt
dt
LabVIEW Programming
100
10
0
10
15
20
25
30
Applied Drive Current [mA]
35
40
Conductance in Normal
and
Superconducting
states match model well
Gradual
increase
in
conductance seen; not
sharp switch to high
conductance state
This phenomenon is due
to superconductivity in
thin films
According to
Huebener et al.
(1972) regions of thin
film superconductors
go normal with
increasing magnetic
field
Images of superconducting Indium under increasing magnetic field
(dark areas are superconducting)
My Contribution
Cryostat Re-work
In the third week of my internship an electrical ground spike caused the bolometer
chip to fail
Downtime during installation of new chip allowed for cryostat fixes and
improvements
The following fixes or improvements were made:
Replaced cryocooler with electrically isolated pulsetube crycooler
Electrically isolating cryostat from cryocooler compressor protects against
ground spikes
Replacing the cryocooler required adding adapters to cryostat and
machining previous components
Isolated cryocooler required stand for remote valves and inertance tanks
Thermal straps were re-annealed to improve thermal conductance
4 aluminum thermal joints were replaced with copper
Diode circuits were installed on heater and drive coil circuits to protect against
power surges from source meters
Overall, improvements caused:
Greater cooling power
Better conductance across most thermal joints
Reduced cool-down time
Peace-of-mind
Conductance [pW/K]
At base temperatures from 0.3-1.0 K measured temperature rise vs. heat applied
Applying current greater the critical current, Ic, puts switch in high conductance
state