BlueFors LD250 cryostat at Cornell boosts quantum research

A high-performance cryostat is helping researchers at Cornell delve deeper into quantum science.

In the summer of 2023, Cornell’s School of Applied and Engineering Physics purchased and installed a BlueFors LD250 cryostat with support from Cornell Engineering’s James R. Meehl Equipment Fund, according to an online post by Cornell.

A cryostat is an instrument that can maintain samples at incredibly low temperatures. When operating, the temperature inside the cryostat hovers just above 0 degrees Kelvin, which is equivalent to absolute zero, or minus 273 degrees centigrade. 

“The facility encourages collaborative projects that enhance the quantum science efforts at Cornell,” said Rachael Cohn, cryostat manager, who is responsible for all aspects of the cryostat. “For example, one of our users is researching how qubits—which are the quantum analog of bits in a classical computer—can lose the information that is encoded in them. Understanding these loss mechanisms can help minimize that loss and make quantum computers more efficient.”

Another researcher currently using the cryostat is investigating current-voltage characteristics of Josephson junctions (two superconductors separated by a thin, non-superconducting barrier) in order to determine key properties, such as critical current, that are essential to optimizing junction fabrication and understanding device performance in quantum circuits, the post on the Cornell website says.

And a third researcher is trying to improve the performance of transmon qubits, a type of superconducting qubit, by improving the quality of the materials used for making devices. Transmon qubits are a promising platform for quantum computing, but their performance is limited by device quality.