Case Study
OptiCool at the University of Singapore
Dr. Denis Bandurin - Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore - shares how the OptiCool® offers a unique solution for facilitating his research on low-dimensional quantum material devices.
Denis researches experimental condensed matter physics, in particular, low-dimensional quantum materials devices
“
In our lab, we explore how such materials interact with mid infrared and far infrared radiation. The goal is to explore and understand what are the properties of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. I was actually looking for an optical cryostat with a magnetic field and OptiCool was great because it has this large numerical aperture.
You can ramp magnetic fields super fast in OptiCool which is not the case in many other systems. So that actually accelerates our experiments a lot.
We are currently running an OptiCool 24/7 in our lab. What I noticed from the beginning is that it’s easy for students to get to know the system. It takes them one or two days to get familiar with the control units and with how to cool the sample, how to exchange the sample.
The main feature that we appreciate a lot is the ability to apply a magnetic field from 7 tesla from 1.8 K to 350 K all the way with the field on. This is something which we do a lot because we do a lot of temperature dependent studies.”
Also, we leverage a lot of having DC and RF lines in our cryostat, because we do high frequency experiments And we are also thinking of upgrading it to the fibre optics option as well.
We are currently running an OptiCool 24/7 in our lab What I noticed from the beginning is that it’s easy for students to get to know the system. It takes them one or two days to get familiar with the control units and with how to cool the sample, how to exchange the sample
“The best advantage of OptiCool which we figured out immediately is the isolation of the sample ground from the compressor, from the pump, and from the control electronics. Being from a transport measurement background, I was not expecting this feature to be in the optical cryostat system, and all my students appreciated it a lot, because it was such a clean ground.
The main feature that we appreciate a lot is the ability to apply a magnetic field from 7 tesla from 1.8 K to 350 K all the way with the field on. This is something which we do a lot because we do a lot of temperature dependent studies.
Also, we leverage a lot of having DC and RF lines in our cryostat, because we do high frequency experiments And we are also thinking of upgrading it to the fibre optics option as well.
You can do low noise electronic measurements, so sometimes we would run OptiCool just as a simple, super clean cryostat with low noise capabilities
We actually published a couple of papers already, in one of our recent stories, we discovered viscous photoconductivity of hydrodynamic electrons in graphene, which was discovered thanks to OptiCool.
So I think it’s the perfect system for someone who wants to do optoelectronic measurements in the presence of a magnetic field, and at cryogenic temperatures.
We also really like how the OptiCool looks aesthetically. I think the design is pretty cool. I think someone put a great effort into designing this machine.“
