Small plastic piston-cylinder cell for pulsed magnetic field studies at cryogenic temperatures

Abstract

A plastic piston-cylinder cell based on a thick wall test-tube has been designed for pulsed magnetic field studies. The small 12.7 mm diameter and overall height of 19.3 mm allow the cell to freely rotate in a cryostat with a diameter of 21.5 mm. Electrical leads, coax cable or microstrip transmission lines can be introduced into the pressure chamber for a variety of measurements such as electrical transport, de Haas–van Alphen, Shubnikov–de Haas and Hall effect. A fiber optic has been introduced for the purpose of calibrating the pressure via a ruby manometer. The fiber optic opens up additional experimental techniques such as photoluminescence, photoconductivity and, with use of a special fiber with a Bragg grating, magnetostriction and thermal expansion. Maximum pressures of 0.35 GPa at room temperature have been obtained.

Keywords:

• nonmetallic plastic piston-cylinder cell
• extreme condition research
• fermiology
• pulsed magnetic fields
• Lifshitz transition

Acknowledgements

Our research is funded by DOE NNSA DE-FG52-10NA29659, NSF DMR-0654118 and the State of Florida. The authors thank Ross McDonald and Michael Pacheco at NHMFL's Los Alamos pulsed field facility and Frederik Wolff-Fabris at Dresden's Hochfeld-Magnetlabor Dresden pulsed field facility for extensive technical and experimental assistance. We are deeply indebted to Robert Schwartz for fabrication of the cells, probes and fixtures. Jason Cooley (Los Alamos National Laboratory) grew the exceptionally high purity CeIn₃ crystals for this experiment. Lauren Riner, Ashley Bernheisel and Anica Sunshine provided technical assistance. Dave Barfield and Kevin John provided photographic images and models, respectively, used in this publication.

Notes

Parmax in molded shapes is manufactured by Ensinger Plastics, USA. Production recently ceased due to issues with material quality, but it is hoped that Parmax (now marketed as Tecamax SRP120) will be reintroduced in 2014. The tensile modulus for PX1200 at 300 K is 8.27 GPa and 9.60 at 4 K. Poisson's ratio is 0.408, 0.363 and 0.413 at 300, 200 and 100 K, respectively. The yield strength at 300 K is 220 MPa.

Cu-polyamide 50 Ω microstrip (0.001^′′ Cu, 0.005^′′ polyamide, 0.001^′′ Cu) is manufactured by Kadflx, Inc., USA.

107 μm Kapton clad fiber optic, Fiberguide Indst., USA.

The HIP (hot isostatically pressed) micrograin YSZ piston is manufactured by Progressive Technology, USA. Mechanical properties were not available from the vendor.

Zylon HM fiber 190 dtex with corona treatment is manufactured by Toyobo Co., Ltd., Japan.

NanoFLON powder is sold by Shamrock Technologies, USA, http://shamrocktechnologies.com/.