We developed an impedance bridge that operates at cryogenic temperatures (down to 60 mK) and in perpendicular magnetic fields up to at least 12 T. This is achieved by mounting a GaAs HEMT amplifier perpendicular to a printed circuit board containing the device under test and thereby parallel to the magnetic field. The measured amplitude and phase of the output signal allows for the separation of the total impedance into an absolute capacitance and a resistance. Through a detailed noise characterization, we find that the best resolution is obtained when operating the HEMT amplifier at the highest gain. We obtained a resolution in the absolute capacitance of 6.4~aF$/sqrt{textrm{Hz}}$ at 77 K on a comb-drive actuator, while maintaining a small excitation amplitude of 15~$k_text{B} T/e$. We show the magnetic field functionality of our impedance bridge by measuring the quantum Hall plateaus of a top-gated hBN/graphene/hBN heterostructure at 60~mK with a probe signal of 12.8~$k_text{B} T/e$.
Reflection measurements give access to the complex impedance of a material on a wide frequency range. This is of interest to study the dynamical properties of various materials, for instance disordered superconductors. However reflection measurements made at cryogenic temperature suffer from the difficulty to reliably subtract the circuit contribution. Here we report on the design and first tests of a setup able to precisely calibrate in situ the sample reflection, at 4.2 K and up to 2 GHz, by switching and measuring, during the same cool down, the sample and three calibration standards.
Conventional readout of a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) sets an upper bound on the output voltage to be the product of the bias current and the load impedance, $I_mathrm{B}times Z_mathrm{load}$, where $Z_mathrm{load}$ is limited to 50 $Omega$ in standard r.f. electronics. Here, we break this limit by interfacing the 50 $Omega$ load and the SNSPD using an integrated superconducting transmission line taper. The taper is a transformer that effectively loads the SNSPD with high impedance without latching. It increases the amplitude of the detector output while preserving the fast rising edge. Using a taper with a starting width of 500 nm, we experimentally observed a 3.6$times$ higher pulse amplitude, 3.7$times$ faster slew rate, and 25.1 ps smaller timing jitter. The results match our numerical simulation, which incorporates both the hotspot dynamics in the SNSPD and the distributed nature in the transmission line taper. The taper studied here may become a useful tool to interface high-impedance superconducting nanowire devices to conventional low-impedance circuits.
In the described device, the thermal emissivity or absorptivity of the sample is measured by substitution of the radiative heat flow between two parallel surfaces by thermal output of a heater. Fast measurements of the mutual emissivity for the range of the temperature of the radiating surface 25 K-150 K are possible. The absorbing surface has a temperature between 5 K and 10 K when LHe is used as cryoliquid. The desired measurement sensitivity is 1 mK for temperature and 0.1 {mu}W for heat power, respectively. The diameter of the whole device is 50 mm and so it is possible to use a commercial dewar can for the cooling. The form of the sample is a round plate 40 mm in diameter and 1 mm in thickness with one tested side. The emissivity and its temperature dependency for various surface treatments can be checked immediately before application in a cryogenic system.
In this paper we describe the technology of building a vacuum-tight high voltage feedthrough which is able to operate at voltages up to 30 kV. The feedthrough has a coaxial structure with a grounded sheath which makes it capable to lead high voltage potentials into cryogenic liquids, without risk of surface discharges in the gas phase above the liquid level. The feedthrough is designed to be used in ionization detectors, based on liquefied noble gases, such as Argon or Xenon.
We have designed and characterized a cryogenic amplifier for use in $^3$He NMR spectrometry. The amplifier, with a power consumption of $sim 2.5$ mW, works at temperatures down to 4~K. It has a hi-impedance input for measuring a signal from NMR resonant circuit, and a 50 $mathrm{Omega}$ differential input which can be used for pick-up compensation and gain calibration. At 4.2 K, the amplifier has a voltage gain of 45, output resistance 146 $mathrm{Omega}$ and a 4.4 MHz bandwidth starting from DC. At 1 MHz, the voltage and current noise amount to 1.3 $mbox{nV}/sqrt{mbox{Hz}}$ and 12 $mbox{fA}/sqrt{mbox{Hz}}$, respectively, which yields an optimal source impedance of $sim 100$ k$mathrm{Omega}$.