Thermal conductance measurements of pressed OFHC copper contacts at liquid helium temperatures

The thermal conductance of oxygen-free high conductivity (OFHC) copper sample pairs with surface finishes ranging from 0.1 to 1.6-micrometers rms roughness was investigated over the range of 1.6 to 6.0-K under applied contact forces up to 670 N. The thermal conductance increases with increasing contact force; however, no correlation can be drawn with respect to surface finish

Thermal conductance of pressed contacts at liquid helium temperatures

The thermal contact conductance of a 0.4 micrometer surface finish OFHC copper sample pair has been investigated from 1.6 to 3.8 K for a range of applied contact forces up to 670 N. Experimental data have been fitted to the relation Q = the integral alpha T to the nth power dt by assuming that the thermal contact conductance is a simple power function of the sample temperature. It has been found that the conductance is proportional to T squared and that conductance increases with an increase in applied contact force. These results confirm earlier work

Performance of all-metal demountable cryogenic seals at superfluid helium temperatures

Two all-metal demountable cryogenic seals with an outside diameter of 36.6 mm, inside diameter of 27.2 mm, and thickness of 0.51 mm were leak-tested at room temperature (300 K), liquid nitrogen temperature (21 cycles at 77 K), liquid helium temperature (9 cycles at 4.2 K), and susperfluid helium temperature (4 cycles at 1.6 K). Each seal was mounted and demounted for 13 cycles. Thickness measurements at 90 deg intervals along the circumference showed a maximum seal compression of 0.038 mm. Leak-rate measurements at all temperatures showed no detectable leak above the helium background level, typically 0.1 x 10(-9) std-cc/sec, during testing

Thermal conductance of pressed aluminum and stainless steel contacts at liquid helium temperatures

The thermal conductance of aluminum and stainless steel 304 sample pairs with surface finishes ranging from 0.1 to 1.6 microns rms roughness was investigated over a temperature range from 1.6 to 6.0 k. The thermal conductance follows a simple power law function of temperature, with the exponent ranging from 0.5 to 2.25, increases asymptotically with increasing applied force, and exhibits an anomaly for surface finishes in the 0.4 micron region

A helium-3 refrigerator employing capillary confinement of liquid cryogen

A condensation refrigerator suitable for operation in a zero gravity space environment was constructed. The condensed liquid refrigerant is confined by surface tension inside a porous metal matrix. Helium-4 and helium-3 gases were condensed and held in a copper matrix. Evaporative cooling of confined liquid helium-4 resulted in a temperature of 1.4K. Using a zeolite adsorption pump external to the cryostat, a temperature of 0.6 K was achieved through evaporative cooling of liquid helium-3. The amount of time required for complete evaporation of a controlled mass of liquid helium-4 contained in the copper matrix was measured as a function of the applied background power. For heating powers below 18 mW the measured times are consistent with the normal boiling of the confined volume of liquid refrigerant. At background powers above 18 mW the rapid rise in the temperature of the copper matrix the signature of the absence of confined liquid occurs in a time a factor of two shorter than that expected on the basis of an extrapolation of the low power data

Mesoscopic mechanism of adiabatic charge transport

We consider adiabatic charge transport through mesoscopic metallic samples caused by a periodically changing external potential. We find that both the amplitude and the sign of the charge transferred through a sample per period are random sample specific quantities. The characteristic magnitude of the charge is determined by the quantum interference.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Thermal conductance of augmented pressed metallic contacts at liquid helium temperatures

The thermal conductance of uncoated oxygen-free high conductivity (OFHC) copper, 6061-T6 aluminum, free-machining brass, and 304 stainless steel sample pairs which were augmented with a gold coated 6061-T6 aluminum washer inserted between the contact surfaces was measured over the temperature range of 1.6 to 6.0 K, with applied forces from 22 to 670 N. The contact surfaces of the sample pairs were prepared with a 0.8 micron lapped finish, while the finish of the aluminum washer was 0.2 micron lapped. The contribution to the overall thermal impedance by the bulk conductance of the aluminum washer was negligible. It was found that addition of the washer offered no significant conductance improvement over an uncoated single contact pair; any benefits from using the gold plated washer were counteracted by the addition of two more contact surfaces. Additionally, the thermal conductance of a 'combination' aluminum sample pair having one gold coated and one uncoated surface was measured and compared to the washer pair. The ratio of the conductance of the washer pair to half the conductance of the 'combination' pair was found to be constant and near unity over the temperature range of the data obtained, within experimental error

All order covariant tubular expansion

We consider tubular neighborhood of an arbitrary submanifold embedded in a (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold. This can be described by Fermi normal coordinates (FNC) satisfying certain conditions as described by Florides and Synge in \cite{FS}. By generalizing the work of Muller {\it et al} in \cite{muller} on Riemann normal coordinate expansion, we derive all order FNC expansion of vielbein in this neighborhood with closed form expressions for the curvature expansion coefficients. Our result is shown to be consistent with certain integral theorem for the metric proved in \cite{FS}.Comment: 27 pages. Corrected an error in a class of coefficients resulting from a typo. Integral theorem and all other results remain unchange

Thermal conductance of pressed metallic contacts augmented with Indium foil or Apiezon-N (tm) grease at liquid helium temperatures

The thermal conductance of pressed contacts which have been augmented with Indium foil or Apiezon-N (tm) grease was measured over the temperature range of 1.6 to 6.0 K, with applied forces from 22 N to 670 N. The sample pairs were fabricated from OFHC copper, 6061-T6 aluminum, free-machining brass, and 304 stainless steel. Although the thermal conductance was found to increase with increasing applied contact force, the force dependence was less than in earlier work. The addition of Indium foil or Apiezon-NT grease between the contact surfaces resulted in an improvement over uncoated surfaces ranging from a factor of approximately 3 for stainless steel to an order of magnitude for copper contacts

Effects of interaction on an adiabatic quantum electron pump

We study the effects of inter-electron interactions on the charge pumped through an adiabatic quantum electron pump. The pumping is through a system of barriers, whose heights are deformed adiabatically. (Weak) interaction effects are introduced through a renormalisation group flow of the scattering matrices and the pumped charge is shown to {\it always} approach a quantised value at low temperatures or long length scales. The maximum value of the pumped charge is set by the number of barriers and is given by $Q_{\rm max} = n_b -1$. The correlation between the transmission and the charge pumped is studied by seeing how much of the transmission is enclosed by the pumping contour. The (integer) value of the pumped charge at low temperatures is determined by the number of transmission maxima enclosed by the pumping contour. The dissipation at finite temperatures leading to the non-quantised values of the pumped charge scales as a power law with the temperature ($Q-Q_{\rm int} \propto T^{2\alpha}$), or with the system size ($Q-Q_{\rm int} \propto L_s^{-2\alpha}$), where $\alpha$ is a measure of the interactions and vanishes at $T=0 ~(L_s=\infty)$. For a double barrier system, our result agrees with the quantisation of pumped charge seen in Luttinger liquids.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, better quality figures available on request from author