Design and verification of low temperature part of UHV – STM microscope

The diploma thesis addresses the design and experimental verification of cooling system and low temperature part of UHV - STM working in temperature range of 20K - 300K. Due to the demand of variable temperature, the flow cooling system with cryogenic (~5 K) helium (He) is used. Two variants of the low temperature part of the microscope are studied. First the version with cooling only the sample holder, and second with cooling of the whole STM. Designed cooling system consists of He flow cryostat allowing to connect it to the Dewar vessel with liquid helium (LHe) using a low-loss transfer line. The cryostat consists of He inlet and outlet, heat exchangers and copper strains (i.e. braids) for the thermal connection of the sample holder/STM and radiation shield around the STM with the heat exchangers. The thesis describes the design of the flow cryostat and its initial tests in the designed vacuum chamber. Heat flow through a spot contact is also discussed to estimate thermal conductance of insulation supports based on thermal resistance of spherical contacts. The thesis was elaborated in collaboration with the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the ASCR, v.v.i