MRI: Acquisition of cryogen-free low-temperature scanning-probe spectroscopy system for nanophotonic and nanoelectronic device characterization

工业化世界尤其是美国面临着严重的氦短缺，这威胁到了需要低温冷却的大量工业和医疗应用。例如，磁共振成像依靠液态氦来冷却高功率磁体，这些磁体需要创建用于临床分析和医疗干预的体内图像。氦对美国的太空探索计划以及其他民用和军事用途也是不可或缺的。这项提案要求提供资金购买一种名为attoDRY1100的仪器，该仪器允许在极低温度和高磁场下对纳米材料和设备进行复杂的光学表征，而不需要液体氦。这一无制冷剂系统彻底消除了史蒂文斯理工学院目前每年约5万美元的液氦运营成本，更重要的是，避免了每年约5000升珍贵惰性气体的消耗，从而为建设一个更绿色的校园做出贡献。这些设备将被整合到史蒂文斯的共享用户纳米光子学实验室，在那里它将满足史蒂文斯大学5个系的11个研究小组的30多名学生和工作人员的日益增长的用户基础的需求。无制冷剂系统将推进几个由美国国家科学基金会资助的项目，这些项目解决了纳米材料光-物质相互作用的基本问题，处于当前研究的前沿。这些项目还瞄准了一系列具有潜在变革性应用的光子设备，例如在国家安全和可持续能源方面。更广泛的影响将来自这样一个事实，即所请求的仪器将被安置在一个中央用户设施中，该设施有成功地对从高中到博士后研究人员的广泛学生进行多学科培训的历史，这些学生致力于纳米技术的前沿研究。PI‘s将在美国化学学会的SEED计划和史蒂文斯的Ecoes计划的框架内，进一步将其外展活动扩展到目前的数百名高中生，其中将特别包括各种纳米技术工具的实践教育，包括attoDRY1100。该提案要求提供资金，以购买集成CFM-I扫描探头共焦显微镜插件的attoDRY1100无制冷剂低温恒温器。无制冷剂系统将使NSF资助的几个项目受益，这些项目解决了纳米材料中光-物质相互作用的基本问题，包括石墨烯和过渡金属二卤化物的异质结构、超清洁的碳纳米管、锂-铌酸盐微腔、用于生物质转化的催化剂表面，以及溶液处理的无机-有机混合半导体薄膜。这些项目的目标是广泛的光子器件，包括片上光电探测器、全光调制器、量子光源、薄膜有机太阳能电池和基于零效应的开关，这些器件意味着在国家安全、可持续能源等领域的变革性应用。AttoDRY1100仪器提供了丰富的新功能和测量模式，非常适合正在进行的研究项目。这些包括光致发光和光电流信号的高光谱2D映射、10 nm分辨率的低温光刻、受限激子的磁致发光研究、表面催化的原位拉曼映射以及单量子发射体的长期无漂移量子光学研究。

The industrialized world and the United States in particular faces a critical Helium shortage, which threatens a multitude of industrial and medical applications requiring cryogenic cooling. For example, Magnetic Resonance Imagery relies on liquid Helium to cool the high-power magnets needed to create interior body images for clinical analysis and medical intervention. Helium is also indispensable to the U.S. space exploration program and other civilian and military uses. This proposal requests funding to purchase an instrument called attoDRY1100 that allows for carrying out sophisticated optical characterization of nanomaterials and devices at extremely low temperatures and high magnetic fields without the need for liquid Helium. This cryogen-free system completely eliminates the current annual liquid Helium operation costs of about $50,000 at Stevens Institute of Technology, and more importantly, avoids the annual consumption of about 5000 liters of a precious noble gas, thereby contributing to a "greener campus". The equipment will be incorporated into the shared-user Nanophotonics Lab at Stevens where it will serve the needs of a growing user base of over 30 students and staff representing 11 research groups from 5 departments at Stevens. The cryogen-free system will advance several NSF-funded projects that address fundamental questions of the light-matter interaction of nanomaterials at the forefront of current research. These projects also target a broad range of photonic devices that have potential transformative applications, such as in national security and sustainable energy. The broader impacts will come from the fact that the requested instrument will be housed in a central user facility which has a history of successful multidisciplinary training of a broad range of students from high school to postdoctoral researchers addressing forefront research in nanotechnology. The PI's will further expand their outreach activities to currently several hundred high schools students in the framework of the SEED program of the American Chemical Society and the ECOES program at Stevens, that will specifically include hands-on education on various nanotechnology tools, including the attoDRY1100.This proposal requests funding to purchase the attoDRY1100 cryogen-free cryostat with an integrated CFM-I scanning-probe confocal microscope insert. The cryogen-free system will benefit several NSF-funded projects that address fundamental questions of the light-matter interaction in nanomaterials, which include heterostructures of graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides, ultra-clean carbon nanotubes, lithium-niobate microcavities, catalytic surfaces for biomass conversion, and solution-processed hybrid inorganic-organic semiconductor thin films. These projects target a broad range of photonic devices, including on-chip photodetectors, all-optical modulators, quantum light sources, thin-film organic solar cells, and Zeno-effect-based switches, which imply transformative applications in national security, sustainable energy, and beyond. The attoDRY1100 instrument offers a wealth of new functionalities and measurement modes highly desirable to the ongoing research projects. These include hyperspectral 2D-mapping of photoluminescence and photocurrent signals, cryogenic photolithography with 10 nm resolution, magneto-luminescence studies of confined excitons, in-situ Raman mapping of surface catalysis, and long-term drift-free quantum-optics studies of single quantum emitters.