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New
Release -- Superconductor Week does not edit or endorse the following
news release: AIST
Announces Installation of Noiseless Superconducting Detector Array for Mass
Spectrometry June 16 --
Dr. Masataka Ohkubo, leader and his colleagues of the Super-Spectroscopy System
Research Group (SSSRG), the Research Institute of Instrumentation Frontier (RIIF),
the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), an
independent administrative institution, have implemented the installation
technology for multi-cable (involving 100 coaxial cables) leading fast pulse
signals out of 0.3 K cryogenic environment to room temperature one, needed for
the development of advanced mass spectrometers.
- Superconducting detector has 100 %
detection efficiency for whatever kind of particles, while the installation
technology in the cryogenic environment at around 0.3 K (= - 272.7 C), which
is indispensable for the operation, has not been available so far for a
large scale array detector.
- The installation of 100 coaxial cables
for the array detector have been successfully installed in the cryogenic
environment. The heat flow through the cables is held at 5.4 microW, and the
temperature rise is less than 0.015 K.
- The size of the superconducting
detector array can be upgraded by a degree of magnitude in comparison to the
existing system involving a dozen of devices. The new installation
technology, which enables a high mass resolution, will open the way to the
practical use of mass spectrometer of 100 % detection efficiency for
particles from atoms to macromolecules such as protein.
The superconducting detectors have
excellent performance of detecting soft X rays and giant macromolecules,
which was not available with the conventional semiconductor-based detectors
in the X-ray spectrometry and the mass spectrometry. However, the system
requires a cryogenic environment of temperature as low as 0.3 K and as the
effective area of a single superconducting detector is as small as hundreds
of micro m at the largest, an array of 100 superconducting detectors is
required for the practical application of mass spectrometer with 100 %
particle detecting efficiency.
In order to use the 100 superconducting detectors, a fast communication
technology to link up the 0.3 K cryogenic environment with the room
temperature ambient is needed. However, heat flow through the cable has been
too great to implement the system through the conventional technology.
In the present study, the heat flow has been suppressed to less than 5.4
microW by using 100 coaxial cables as thin as 0.33 mm diameter, and making
conductor from lower heat conduction metal. The feasibility of installation
has been verified through the measurement of thermal conductivity with the
coaxial cable under the cryogenic environment.
On the basis of these results, the prospect has been opened for practical
use of the time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF MS) with ultimate
sensitivity and 100 % particle detection efficiency covering particles from
atoms to macromolecules such as protein, irrespective of molecular weight
and molecular species. |
