Design of a Compact High Vacuum System

A major difficulty in the rotational spectroscopy research is the vacuum system. The frequency band of molecular rotational motion lies in the microwave region with a wavelength of 1 - 10 cm. A pair of big reflectors is needed to withhold the microwave beam pulse in the Fabry-Pérot cavity. To achieve 1,000 - 10,000 reflections before the signals die off in a high-Q resonator down to 3 GHz, the two mirrors should have ~0.5 m diameters and need to be ~1 m apart to form a near confocal cavity resonator, which needs an even larger vacuum chamber to accommodate it. Since the O.D. of flanges is ~ 40% larger than the I.D., the vacuum system will be too big to pass the single open door for most KSU research labs. In view of this, I propose to build a semi-confocal Fabry-Perot cavity resonator which uses a flat disk reflector to take the place of one spherically curved mirror. This design not only enable us to use a half-sized vacuum chamber to accommodate the cavity but also allow us to use the flange itself as a mirror to further lower down the cost. The gold plating or coating will be used to improve the reflection and corrosion resistance of the flange-mirror. MATLAB and SolidWork will be used for calculations and 3D graphic design of the entire system. This is an interdisciplinary research project which integrates the powers of science and engineering technology.

• Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Engineering
• Math

STEM major student with interesting in math/physics modeling and computer aided design.

October 01, 2022 - April 30, 2023

Dr. Lu Kang, lkang1@kennesaw.edu