A Cold Cycle Dilution Refrigerator for Space Applications

The cold cycle dilution refrigerator is a continuous refrigerator capable of cooling to temperatures below 100 mK that makes use of a novel thermal magnetic pump. The refrigerator will provide continuous cooling at temperatures below 100 mK. This technology will provide cooling for detectors on future infrared and x-ray astrophysics missions and will, in turn, enable NASA to better fulfill strategic sub-goal 3D to discover the origin, structure, evolution and destiny of the universe, and search for Earth-like planets.

Potential non-NASA applications include, for example, a microcalorimetry system for X-ray spectroscopy. This system would consist of the cold cycle dilution refrigerator integrated with a single pixel TES microcalorimeter. The advantages of this system would be: high resolution, low vibration, low magnetic field, and low maintenance. There are other potential applications that involve integrating a microcalorimeter-based X-ray spectrometer in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) wafer metrology for use in analysis of materials with small defects or quantitative implant metrology. Finally, X-ray microanalysis systems using superconducting detectors could serve as an alternative method to measuring substrate dopant profiles with high spatial resolution and high precision.

NASA applications include cooling for space science instruments to temperatures below 1 Kelvin, which is critical for future infrared and x-ray astrophysics missions. The cutting edge in detector technology for infrared missions are cryogenic detectors, either transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers or microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs). Both detector types require operation at sub-Kelvin temperatures for the highest sensitivity applications. Future x-ray missions that include spectrometers will include microcalorimeters that also need to be cooled to temperatures below 1 K.

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