Cryogenic microcalorimeter system for ultra-high resolution alpha-particle spectrometry

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2009

OSTI ID:991242

Rabin, Michael W ^[1]; Hoover, Andrew S ^[1]; Bacrania, Mnesh K ^[1]; Croce, Mark P ^[1]; Hoteling, N J ^[1]; Lamont, S P ^[1]; Plionis, A A ^[1]; Dry, D E ^[1]; Ullom, J N ^[2]; Bennett, D A ^[2]; Horansky, R ^[2]; Kotsubo, V ^[2]; Cantor, R ^[3]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. NIST
3. STAR CRYOELECTRONICS

Microcalorimeters have been shown to yield unsurpassed energy resolution for alpha spectrometry, up to 1.06 keV FWHM at 5.3 MeV. These detectors use a superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) to measure the temperature change in an absorber from energy deposited by an interacting alpha particle. Our system has four independent detectors mounted inside a liquid nitrogen/liquid helium cryostat. An adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR) cools the detector stage to its operating temperature of 80 mK. Temperature regulation with {approx}15 uK peak-to-peak variation is achieved by PID control of the ADR. The detectors are voltage-biased, and the current signal is amplified by a commercial SQUID readout system and digitized for further analysis, This paper will discuss design and operation of our microcalorimeter alpha spectrometer, and will show recent results.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 991242
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-09-04606; LA-UR-09-4606; TRN: US1007475
• Resource Relation: Conference: LTD-13 Conference ; July 20, 2009 ; Stanford, CA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ADIABATIC DEMAGNETIZATION
ALPHA PARTICLES
ALPHA SPECTROMETERS
ALPHA SPECTROSCOPY
CRYOGENICS
DESIGN
ENERGY RESOLUTION
HELIUM
READOUT SYSTEMS
REFRIGERATORS
REGULATIONS
RESOLUTION
SPECTROSCOPY