A closed-cycle refrigerator for cooling maser amplifiers below 4 Kelvin

A helium refrigerator utilizing the Gifford-McMahon/Joule-Thomson (GM/JT) cycle was designed and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of using small closed-cycle refrigerators as an alternative to batch-filled cryostats for operating temperatures below 4 K. The systems could be used to cool low-noise microwave maser amplifiers located in large parabolic antennas. These antennas tilt vertically, making conventional liquid-filled dewars difficult to use. The system could also be used for a non-tilting beam waveguide antenna to reduce the helium consumption of a liquid helium cryostat. The prototype system is adjustable to provide 700 mW of cooling at 2.5 K to 3 W at 4.3 K. Performance of the unit is not significantly affected by physical orientation. The volume occupied by the refrigerator is less than 0.1 cu m. Two JT expansion stages are used to maximize cooling capacity per unit mass flow. The heat exchangers were designed to produce minimum pressure drop in the return gas stream. Pressure drop for the entire JT return circuit is less than 5 kpa at a mass flow of 0.06 g/sec when operating at 2.5 K.