Industrial exploitation of a novel, miniature dilution refrigerator and associated vibrometry

Extremely low temperatures (below 100 mK) are used in many fields, from cooling detectors for Astronomy research, to solid state physics, plasma physics and quantum computing research. In the last decade, mechanical coolers (Pulse Tube Coolers mainly) are being offered commercially with low vibrations with the potential of making cryogenic systems so called "dry", i.e. without the use of any cryogenic liquid like liquid helium and/or liquid nitrogen. There is a market for these "dry" systems capable of reaching below 100 mK - mostly using dilution refrigerators. It is therefore important to provide researchers and industries with simple commercial systems that are cryogen free, low vibration, no external re-circulation pumps, all completely electrically operated without cold moving parts. Based on our experience in building prototypes of dilution refrigerators for astronomical instruments, we now propose to bring to the market such a system. To make such systems particularly interesting, we also propose to set-up a cryogenic vibrometry facility to certify accurately the level of vibrations of the commercial systems.