Joint Research Activities

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Joint Research Activities
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A bit of history (2006).
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Coherent electron circuitry may provide that
entirely new alternative. In nanocircuits the
electrons can behave coherently over the circuit
dimension. To achieve coherence, however,
electron scattering lengths must be larger than
the sample size. That demands high purity to
limit impurity scattering but even limiting the
thermal scattering by working at millikelvin
temperatures we are still confined to circuits on
the nanoscale. This provides the motivation for
this application there is an implicit imperative
in nanoscience that there are enormous advantages
to be gained by working at much lower
temperatures. Despite the clear demand,
nanoscience in general is inhibited from
advancing beyond the tens of millikelvin regime
by a lack of appropriate expertise and
facilities. However, in Europe we already have
the greatest concentration of microkelvin
infrastructure and expertise in the world,
developed by our quantum-fluids community. By
integration and rationalization MICROKELVIN aims
to put this existing infrastructure
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The Joint Research Activities in some sense form
the central part of this Infrastructure Project
as they contain the actual work that is going to
be done. I think it is fair to say that the
prime aim of the JRAs is the consolidation and
enhancement of our working together. And I
should emphasize that it is the input which we
are supplying to make this infrastructure
integration rather than the output of the
integration. There are two central themes
running through the JRAs. First of course the
facilitating the opening up of the microkelvin
temperature regime to nanoscience and other
experiments which is the overall aim of the
project. Secondly to enhance the teams abilities
to deliver these aspirations by developing
techniques, methodologies and instrumentation to
achieve the main aim, both in the context of the
access offering infrastructure and to the wider
scientific community.
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We are going to have individual talks on each of
these JRAs and here I am only trying to give an
overview. Let us start with JRA1 which is
central to the whole activity of the project.
Opening the microkelvin regime to nanoscience
Which is what the whole thing is about. This
project embodies the central integrating activity
of this project.
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The three tasks envisaged are
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• The improvement of making thermal contact to
  nanosamples - to get them cooled to around or
  below 1 mK (Coordinator ULANC).
• Building with our SME partner BlueFors a
  self-standing dilution refrigerator with nuclear
  and nanosample stage which can be used in any lab
  in the world without the need for an
  infrastructure to supply liquid refrigerants
  (thus building on task 1). (Coordinators CNRS
  TKK)
• And finally with the knowledge we now have and
  will gain over the project the building at
  Lancaster of the most advanced refrigerator for
  microkelvin measurements which we have the
  collective knowledge to make. (Coordinator
  ULANC).

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It is salutary that this knowledge is really
needed now, and cannot wait for the slow
grinding of the FP7 machine. As a result of
just writing this proposal we have already had a
major new meeting of minds between ourselves at
Lancaster and Basel group with very fruitful
visits in both directions in the last few months.

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Since we are talking about the details of these
projects in subsequent talks let me give here
rather the politics and manpower aspects of what
these tasks entail. Task 1 New facilitating
technology for nanoscience at microkelvin
temperatures. The partners involved in that
are ULANC, BASEL, SAS, TKK and CNRS. Those in
the list with experience in this field are ULANC,
RHUL, SAS, TKK and CNRS all having learned it
through experiments on quantum fluids which means
we can only work at 1 mK or below. The other
partners in the consortium (HEID, SNS, BASEL,
DELFT, BLUEFORS, UL, PTB) are those wanting this
technology for nanoscience experiments, directly,
now. But of course the other partners also want
this technology for nanoscience experiments for
current and future developments. So in this
task the knowledge pull and the knowledge push
are very clear.
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Task 2 Designing a compact dilution refrigerator
with a nuclear stage which can be used anywhere.
The groups involved in this are (CNRS, TKK,
ULANC, RHUL, BASEL, BLUEFORS and UL). All of
these groups have knowhow (and will have more
generated in task 1) for contributing to this
project. So our work here is mostly input.
The beneficiaries are European and other
scientists further afield who will be able to
make use of such machines in environments with
poor infrastructures and lack of access to liquid
helium and liquid nitrogen. This benefits
peripheral parts of Europe as well as the second
and third worlds. However, looking further
ahead with increasing industrial demand on the
world helium supply, the day is not far off when
liquid helium will no longer be available and at
that point (maybe closer than we think) we will
all need this technology.
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Our final task (3) is the creation of the worlds
best system given knowledge which we already have
and which we will gain in these JRAs is being
prepared in Lancaster. For experiments at the
lowest possible temperatures the centres which
know how to do this are either represented in
this room today, or are in Japan. We thus have
here most of the worlds expertise in this
project and it is a new venture for us as a
panEuropean group to cooperate (rather than
compete) in building the worlds best machine.
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JRA2 Ultralow Temperature Nanorefrigerator
(TKK, CNRS, RHUL, SNS, BASEL, DELFT) This is
something completely different the development
of the refrigerator on a chip. This owes
nothing to existing conventional cooling methods
but relies on the manipulation of temperature by
playing with the electron gases in various
materials and manipulating them with various
valves and filters. So this is in a sense an
advanced version of the Peltier cooling systems.
Furthermore TKK is the world leader in this
technology. The advantages here is that the
whole refrigerator is itself a nano-object and
can in principle be incorporated in a
miniaturized circuit, with obvious advantages for
running components at temperatures where noise
and decoherence is at a minimum.
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JRA3 Attacking Fundamental Physics Problems
with Microkelvin Condensed Matter
Experiments. This is the one blue-skies part
of this programme. The central part is the use
of quantum fluids at microkelvin temperatures as
models for other things in physics and especially
in cosmology, because as we all know the inner
structure of the helium-3 condensate resembles
very closely the inner structure of space-time
itself. We are thus here providing a collective
service to the rest of physics and especially to
cosmology. Historically, it is this subject
which first put into train the working together
of the three central laboratories in this project
CNRS, TKK and ULANC and which has since grown to
the realization of our MICROKELVIN project today.
Anyway, Henri, CNRS, will be taking about that
later.
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JRA4 Novel Methods and Devices for Ultralow
Temperature Measurements. To develop contactless
measurement techniques for microkelvin
temperatures To develop low noise
SQUID-amplifiers for measurements at the quantum
limit To develop novel ultra low temperature
thermometers In other words this is the
critical instrumentation activity of this
project.
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Thus to summarise JRA1 The development of
new macroscopic cooling methods, both for the
benefit of our own integration AND for the wider
community, both scientific and industrial. JRA2
The development of new microscopic cooling
methods, clearly to our own benefit but of great
scientific and economic implications for the
wider community. JRA3 The use of our
microkelvin infrastructure as a resource for
tabletop cosmological, high energy and exotic
particle experiments. JRA4 The development of
the necessary instrumentation to support the
other integrating activities (and which inter
alia will necessarily have wider implications for
other workers in these areas).
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The End
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The End (But its really only the beginning!