TomBenedict
Cryogenic Detector Internals
More fun stuff from work. These are most of the internals of the detector rendered in "Cryogenic Detector Outside". The detector itself is pretty much buried under other crud.
The big orange cone is the bottom half of the cold finger assembly. (It will be made of OFHC copper, hence the orange color.) The upper half is bolted to the cryogenic cooler itself. In order to disassemble the camera, the cooler assembly is unbolted and removed. The only connection to the cooler assembly is this two piece cone system. This helps the cooler center on the cold finger assembly, and assures good thermal contact. The mating halves of the cone assembly are manufactured at the same time, and are then lapped together to ensure good contact.
Most of the thermal isolation is visible. The three vertical tabs are G10 phenolic, which provide the thermal isolation between the cold bits of the camera and the warm bits. The arrangement is also quite stiff, so things shouldn't move around much.
The two horizontal tabs (which are not quite the same shape, unfortunately) don't really offer thermal isolation. They're big springs whose job is to hold the cold finger assembly against the back of the detector.
Internal renderings of a cryogenically cooled CCD detector showing components of the cold finger assembly..
Cryogenic Detector Internals
More fun stuff from work. These are most of the internals of the detector rendered in "Cryogenic Detector Outside". The detector itself is pretty much buried under other crud.
The big orange cone is the bottom half of the cold finger assembly. (It will be made of OFHC copper, hence the orange color.) The upper half is bolted to the cryogenic cooler itself. In order to disassemble the camera, the cooler assembly is unbolted and removed. The only connection to the cooler assembly is this two piece cone system. This helps the cooler center on the cold finger assembly, and assures good thermal contact. The mating halves of the cone assembly are manufactured at the same time, and are then lapped together to ensure good contact.
Most of the thermal isolation is visible. The three vertical tabs are G10 phenolic, which provide the thermal isolation between the cold bits of the camera and the warm bits. The arrangement is also quite stiff, so things shouldn't move around much.
The two horizontal tabs (which are not quite the same shape, unfortunately) don't really offer thermal isolation. They're big springs whose job is to hold the cold finger assembly against the back of the detector.
Internal renderings of a cryogenically cooled CCD detector showing components of the cold finger assembly..