Last week, our low temperature team, workshop technicians and the cryoengineer from ICE Oxford managed to unpack, install and commission our new cryogenic system that uses 3He and 4He, two stable isotopes of helium, to reach sub-kelvin temperatures. At the end of the week, the ‘fridge’ managed to cooldown our custom sample cell containing a thin film of superfluid helium to temperatures as low as 300 mK. This £400k apparatus will soon be used as a new platform for exploring the dynamics of thin superfluid films using advanced, ultra-sensitive optical methods like digital holography and other interferometric techniques.
