Thermal Performances of an Improved Package for Cryocooled Josephson Standards

Complex cryogenics still represents a strong limitation to the spread of Josephson voltage standards, and cryogenfree cooling is particularly suitable to simplify their operation. The main downsides of liquid-helium-free systems are related to the chip thermalization: Indeed, at low temperature, the heat transfer between the chip and the coldplate of a cryocooler in vacuum is strongly affected by the quality of the interfaces. In order to increase the thermal performances of cryocooled programmable Josephson standards, we devised and tested a special cryopackage: The chip is embedded into a sandwich structure with high-thermal-conductivity materials subject to a controlled mechanical pressure to reduce the thermal contact resistances. A thin sapphire lamina placed upon the chip allows the heat to be dissipated from the top, thus creating an additional path for the thermal flow. A special bridgelike system with a screw is used as a reproducible torque-to-force converter to exert known pressures to the sandwich. Furthermore, we analyzed the effect of thermal contraction to the actual pressure exerted on the chip, showing a nonnegligible increase when cooled down to cryogenic temperature that can be calculated and corrected for

Development of a PJVS System for Quantum-Based Sampled Power Measurements

The paper deals with recent progresses at INRiM towards the development and characterization of a programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) operating in a small liquid helium dewar as well as with its integration for the realization of a practical quantum sampling electrical power standard. The PJVS is based on a 1V superconductor-normal metal-superconductor (SNS) binary-divided array of 8192 Josephson junctions. To ensure proper operating conditions of the PJVS chip, a custom short cryoprobe was designed, built and successfully tested. The overall system is being developed in the framework of EMPIR project 19RPT01-QuantumPower. The goal is to establish a new quantum power standard (QPS) based on a single Josephson voltage standard for sampled power measurements and to gain confidence in running PJVS for precise calibration of digital sampling multimeters and arbitrary waveform digitizers used in the ac-voltage and power metrology community

A calibration-verification testbed for electrical energy meters under low power quality conditions

open7A calibration/verification testbed for electrical energy meters is under development at the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, the National Metrology Institute of Italy. The testbed will be employed for the calibration of commercial static power energy meters under low power conditions and for simulating the verification in the field of energy meters under real operational conditions. The activity is in collaboration with the Ministry for Economic Development and aims to the future development of regulatory documents for energy metering verification.openCallegaro, Luca; Aprile, Giulia; Cultrera, Alessandro; Galliana, Flavio; Germito, Gabriele; Serazio, Danilo; Trinchera, BrunoCallegaro, Luca; Aprile, Giulia; Cultrera, Alessandro; Galliana, Flavio; Germito, Gabriele; Serazio, Danilo; Trinchera, Brun

Laboratory reproduction of on-field low power quality conditions for the calibration/verification of electrical energy meters

– In this work we present a method for testing static active energy meters in low power quality conditions recorded at installation sites. Voltage and current waveforms recorded on the field with a calibrated portable instrument were reproduced with an accurate phantom power generator up to the 40th harmonic. The error on the active energy measurement of an energy meter under test (WDUT) in conditions reproduced from the on-field measurements was evaluated in comparison with a reference meter (WREF). On-field data were recorded at a 50 kW self production photovoltaic facility. This method allows the laboratory reproduction of realistic (distorted) on-field conditions in a metrologically traceable framewor

Tests of SNIS Josephson Arrays Cryocooler Operation

Cryogen-free operation of is essential to spread applications of superconductivity and is indeed unavoidable in some cases. In electrical metrology applications, higher temperature operation to reduce the refrigerator size and complexity is not yet possible, since arrays of Josephson junctions for voltage standard applications made with high-temperature superconductors are not yet available. The superconductor-normal metal-insulator-superconductor (SNIS) technology developed at INRIM uses low temperature superconductors, but allows operation well above liquid helium temperature. It is thus interesting for application to a compact cryocooled standard. We studied SNIS devices cooled with a closed-cycle refrigerator, both in DC and under RF irradiation. Issues related to thermal design of the apparatus are analyzed. The dependence of RF steps on the number of junctions observed is discussed in detail and interpreted as a consequence of power dissipated inside the chip

Wideband digital phase comparator for high current shunts

A wideband phase comparator for precise measurements of phase difference of high current shunts has been developed at INRIM. The two-input digital phase detector is realized with a precision wideband digitizer connected through a pair of symmetric active guarded transformers to the outputs of the shunts under comparison. Data are first acquired asynchronously, and then transferred from on-board memory to host memory. Because of the large amount of data collected the filtering process and the analysis algorithms are performed outside the acquisition routine. Most of the systematic errors can be compensated by a proper inversion procedure. The system is suitable for comparing shunts in a wide range of currents, from several hundred of milliampere up to 100 A, and frequencies ranging between 500 Hz and 100 kHz. Expanded uncertainty (k=2) less than 0.05 mrad, for frequency up to 100 kHz, is obtained in the measurement of the phase difference of a group of 10 A shunts, provided by some European NMIs, using a digitizer with sampling frequency up to 1 MHz. An enhanced version of the phase comparator employs a new digital phase detector with higher sampling frequency and vertical resolution. This permits to decrease the contribution to the uncertainty budget of the phase detector of a factor two from 20 kHz to 100 kHz. Theories and experiments show that the phase difference between two high precision wideband digitizers, coupled as phase detector, depends on multiple factors derived from both analog and digital imprint of each sampling system.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

A coaxial cryogenic probe for quantum Hall effect measurements in the AC regime

open9sìThe quantum Hall effect is the basis for the realisation of the resistance and impedance units in the revised International System of units of 2019. This paper describes a cryogenic probe that allows to set graphene Hall devices in quantisation conditions in a helium bath (4.2 K) and magnetic fields up to 6 T, to perform precision measurements in the ac regime with impedance bridges. The probe has a full coaxial wiring, isolated from the probe structure, and holds the device in a TO-8 socket. First characterisation experiments are reported on a GaAs device which shows quantisation at 5.5 T.openMartina Marzano, Ngoc Thanh Mai Tran, Vincenzo D’Elia, Danilo Serazio, Emanuele Enrico, Massimo Ortolano, Klaus Pierz, Jan Kučera, Luca CallegaroMarzano, Martina; Thanh Mai Tran, Ngoc; D'Elia, Vincenzo; Serazio, Danilo; Enrico, Emanuele; Ortolano, Massimo; Pierz, Klaus; Kučera, Jan; Callegaro, Luc

Il progetto GIQS: Graphene Impedance Quantum Standard

The project GIQS: Graphene Impedance Quantum standard is a Joint Research Project of the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR). The goal of the project is the realisation of the SI units of electrical impedance by traceability to the quantum Hall resistance in graphene devices. The project, and the role of the Italian partners, is described