Development of Ultra Low-Temperature Electronics: Design and implementation from low-noise amplifiers to superconducting tuned circuits

This book presents the development of electronics for operation at cryogenic temperatures, with particular emphasis on the cryogenic electronics required for the Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy (AEgIS) experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The research is focused on a highly sensitive charged particle detection system for a Penning trap, on cryogenic low-pass filters and on a low-loss DC-contact RF switch. The detection system consists of a high quality factor tuned circuit including a superconducting coil, and a low-noise amplifier. The developed electronics must reliably operate at 4.2K (-269ºC) and in high constant magnetic field of more than 1 Tesla. Therefore, the performance of the cryogenic electronic designs were carefully evaluated at low-temperature/high magnetic field, the result of which have important implications for the AEgIS experiment. Moreover, a new possibility of replacing the superconducting coil by a very high quality factor crystal resonator is presented and its possible application in experiments with charged, trapped particles is described.

Thomas Kaltenbacher is currently a researcher in the NanoPhysics Group at the Universityof Bergen in Norway. He received his PhD degree at the Graz University ofTechnology in Austria in year 2013 while he was working on his thesis research atCERN in Switzerland.