High Frequency Cryogenics at Leeds and Manchester (Hi-CaLM) Facility

Tender description

Context: The Universities of Leeds and Manchester have a rich collective history of pioneering research in electronic, photonic, and quantum materials. Through the Henry Royce Institute, the National Graphene Institute, the Bragg Centre for Materials Research and the Photon Science Institute, we deliver significant research leadership, infrastructure and capability open to, and accessed by, the UK academic and industrial communities. Demand for access to our growth and fabrication facilities is substantial and continues to increase as a result of our internationally leading ultrapure implanted silicon, topological insulator, 2D heterostructured, and magnetic materials programmes. This has led to an urgent need to establish aligned capabilities in high-frequency and very low temperature characterisation to underpin the growth, study and exploitation of next-generation advanced materials.<br /><br />Challenges Addressed: Low temperature characterisation (particularly <1K) is essential for investigating quantum coherence and entanglement in development of new quantum materials and technology architectures, and for exploring superconductivity, magnetism, and topology in new materials. Obtaining data on device and materials performance with sufficient timeliness that it can beneficially be fed back into simultaneous development and optimisation programmes is a critical challenge. This requires capacity in measurement systems that are integrated into the materials growth, implantation, and device fabrication capability. It is the purpose of Hi-CaLM to establish this capacity.<br /><br />Aims and Objectives: Our aim is to establish a regionally distributed, accessible, dilution refrigerator facility across the Universities of Manchester and Leeds with complementary high-frequency capabilities. Manchester will focus on megahertz-to-gigahertz frequencies, and Leeds on the gigahertz-to-terahertz range. Each of these requires a different experimental configuration and so cannot be achieved in a single system. The combined facility will strongly enhance the UK capacity for millikelvin high frequency studies of electronic, photonic and quantum materials, both supporting and leading to collaborations with UK academic and industrial users. <br /><br />This tender is to establish the capability described within at the University of Manchester. A separate tender process will be undertaken by the University of Leeds to establish complementary capability at that institution. <br />