Design and characterization of 90 GHz feedhorn-coupled TES polarimeter pixels in the SPTPol camera

The SPTpol camera is a two-color, polarization-sensitive bolometer receiver, and was installed on the 10 meter South Pole Telescope in January 2012. SPTpol is designed to study the faint polarization signals in the Cosmic Microwave Background, with two primary scientific goals. One is to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio of perturbations in the primordial plasma, and thus constrain the space of permissible in inflationary models. The other is to measure the weak lensing effect of large-scale structure on CMB polarization, which can be used to constrain the sum of neutrino masses as well as other growth-related parameters. The SPTpol focal plane consists of seven 84-element monolithic arrays of 150 GHz pixels (588 total) and 180 individual 90 GHz single- pixel modules. In this paper we present the design and characterization of the 90 GHz modules

Critical Radius of Insulation

The critical radius of insulation is a counterintuitive concept within the study of heat transfer. The theory states that adding insulation to a cylindrical or spherical object will increase the rate of heat loss rather than decrease it, if the radius (thickness) of the insulation is at its “critical” value. The Critical Radius of Insulation Senior Project is designed to demonstrate this phenomenon to Heat Transfer students via a portable apparatus. The concept will be demonstrated with a cylindrical object which is heated by way of a separate voltage source. Thermocouples will display the temperature of the cylinder while insulation is added along with ambient air temperature, showing a distinct decrease in temperature caused by the addition of insulation. The design team conducted preliminary experiments using 1Ω, 2Ω, and 10Ω power resistors in an attempt to demonstrate the critical radius theory and evaluate the viability of using power resistors as the heated cylinder. The experiments were unsuccessful in demonstrating the critical radius theory but showed that the prototype setup was a viable design that could demonstrate this theory if the insulation material, insulation thickness, and power resistor diameter were properly modified. Based on the preliminary testing and analysis, a conceptual prototype model was developed. After further testing, the team determined that power resistors would take too long to reach steady state temperatures for a short classroom demonstration and that the diameters of the resistors were too large to demonstrate this theory with the appropriate experimental margin. Other studies were conducted using different heated cylinders starting with Calrod® heating elements. Testing was conducted with these heaters and 3D printed PLA insulation with great success. The heat loss for this setup was greater with the insulation than without, so the team used this heater and insulation combination to create a functioning structural prototype. Once the structural prototype was constructed and thoroughly tested, the team was able to successfully create a portable demonstration apparatus that physically shows the critical radius of insulation theory at work. This document details the iterative design process used to achieve the final design, the final design description, the manufacturing process used to build the final design, the verification and testing process, and conclusions about the overall project and the teams experience. The team’s overall objectives for this project are to first understand the concept of the critical radius of insulation and the experimental variables and assumptions that are important to proving it. The next step is to design and build an apparatus that can be used as a classroom demonstration and test this apparatus to ensure it is safe, easy to use, and clearly demonstrates critical radius theory. A supplemental handout also needs to be created to simply describe the theory to Heat Transfer students that will be witnessing this demonstration

An assessment of the resolution limitation due to radiation-damage in x-ray diffraction microscopy

X-ray diffraction microscopy (XDM) is a new form of x-ray imaging that is being practiced at several third-generation synchrotron-radiation x-ray facilities. Although only five years have elapsed since the technique was first introduced, it has made rapid progress in demonstrating high-resolution threedimensional imaging and promises few-nm resolution with much larger samples than can be imaged in the transmission electron microscope. Both life- and materials-science applications of XDM are intended, and it is expected that the principal limitation to resolution will be radiation damage for life science and the coherent power of available x-ray sources for material science. In this paper we address the question of the role of radiation damage. We use a statistical analysis based on the so-called "dose fractionation theorem" of Hegerl and Hoppe to calculate the dose needed to make an image of a lifescience sample by XDM with a given resolution. We conclude that the needed dose scales with the inverse fourth power of the resolution and present experimental evidence to support this finding. To determine the maximum tolerable dose we have assembled a number of data taken from the literature plus some measurements of our own which cover ranges of resolution that are not well covered by reports in the literature. The tentative conclusion of this study is that XDM should be able to image frozen-hydrated protein samples at a resolution of about 10 nm with "Rose-criterion" image quality.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Site Energies of Active and Inactive Pheophytins in the Reaction Center of Photosystem II from Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii

31 Pags. The definitive version is available at: http://pubs.acs.org/journal/jpcbfkIt is widely accepted that the primary electron acceptor in various Photosystem II (PSII) reaction centers (RCs) is pheophytin a (Pheo a) within the D1 protein (PheoD1), while PheoD2 (within the D2 protein) is photochemically inactive. The Pheo site energies, however, have remained elusive, due to inherent spectral congestion. While most researchers over the last two decades assigned the Qy-states of PheoD1 and PheoD2 bands near 678–684 nm and 668–672 nm, respectively, recent modeling [Raszewski et al. Biophys. J. 2005, 88, 986–998; Cox et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2009, 113, 12364–12374] of the electronic structure of the PSII RC reversed the location of the active and inactive Pheos, suggesting that the mean site energy of PheoD1 is near 672 nm, whereas PheoD2 (~677.5 nm) and ChlD1 (~680 nm) have the lowest energies (i.e., the PheoD2-dominated exciton is the lowest excited state). In contrast, chemical pigment exchange experiments on isolated RCs suggested that both pheophytins have their Qy absorption maxima at 676–680 nm [Germano et al. Biochem. 2001, 40, 11472–11482; Germano et al. Biophys. J. 2004, 86, 1664–1672]. To provide more insight into the site energies of both PheoD1 and PheoD2 (including the corresponding Qx transitions, which are often claimed to be degenerate at 543 nm) and to attest that the above two assignments are most likely incorrect, we studied a large number of isolated RC preparations from spinach and wild-type Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (at different levels of intactness) as well as the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutant (D2-L209H), in which the active branch PheoD1 is genetically replaced with chlorophyll a (Chl a). We show that the Qx-/Qy-region site-energies of PheoD1 and PheoD2 are ~545/680 nm and ~541.5/670 nm, respectively, in good agreement with our previous assignment [Jankowiak et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2002, 106, 8803–8814]. The latter values should be used to model excitonic structure and excitation energy transfer dynamics of the PSII RCs.Partial support to B.N. (involved in calculations) was provided by the NSF EPSCoR Grant. V.Z. (involved in writing the manuscript) acknowledges support by NSERC. R.T.S., R.P., and M.S. were involved in the design and preparation of D2-mutant and RCs. They acknowledge support from USDOE, Photosynthetic Antennae Research Center (R.T.S.), MICIN (Grant AGL2008-00377) in Spain (R.P.), and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Photosynthetic Systems Program within the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences under NREL Contract #DE-AC36-08-GO28308 (M.S.).Peer reviewe

Design and characterization of 90 GHz feedhorn-coupled TES polarimeter pixels in the SPTPol camera

The SPTpol camera is a two-color, polarization-sensitive bolometer receiver, and was installed on the 10 meter South Pole Telescope in January 2012. SPTpol is designed to study the faint polarization signals in the Cosmic Microwave Background, with two primary scientific goals. One is to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio of perturbations in the primordial plasma, and thus constrain the space of permissible in inflationary models. The other is to measure the weak lensing effect of large-scale structure on CMB polarization, which can be used to constrain the sum of neutrino masses as well as other growth-related parameters. The SPTpol focal plane consists of seven 84-element monolithic arrays of 150 GHz pixels (588 total) and 180 individual 90 GHz single- pixel modules. In this paper we present the design and characterization of the 90 GHz modules