UCT’s Physics Department is the ‘coldest place in Africa’

09 March 2016 - 14:29 By TMG Digital

Set a thief to catch a thief. To catch an electron‚ however‚ set a fridge.A fridge that can cool things down to “122 times colder than the known naturally coldest place in the universe – the Boomerang Nebula”‚ that is.The University of Cape Town’s Physics Department has such a fridge – a dilution fridge – which‚ a statement on Wednesday said‚ “is officially the coldest place in Africa with a temperature of 8.190mK (milli-Kelvin)”.“Associate Professor Blumenthal and his team are working with collaborators at Cambridge University and University College London in the field of nano-electronics and are building devices that can track individual electrons and examine the spin on electrons‚” UCT said.“In order to ‘catch’ something as small and elusive as an electron‚ there is a need to cool it to a very low temperature in order to slow it down.”The spin of the electrons is manipulated by the fridge’s 10-tesla superconducting magnet – “25000 times more than the earth’s magnetic field”.“Some of the research applications of the fridge are those of quantum computing and metrology‚ which is the science of standards and quantum cryptography.“The fridge will also be used for the training of students in understanding vacuum systems‚ cryogenics and solid state physics.”The fridge did not arrive in South Africa in perfect working order after its “arduous journey” from Holland.“Blumenthal has been eagerly awaiting the fridge’s arrival for two years and was really frustrated when they opened it up and discovered that this R6.5-million piece of equipment had been destroyed while in transit‚” UCT said.However‚ after spare parts and engineers were flown out from Holland‚ the local and international teams are now “working to refine the working of the fridge‚ which is one of the largest and most powerful in the world”...

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