Speaker
Description
In astrochemistry research, which studies the chemical processes under space-like conditions, experiments need to be done under those extreme conditions. This includes ultra-low pressure of about or less than 10$^{-10}$ Torr and extremely low temperature of about 80K. Therefore, it is necessary to build a device capable of responding to such research condition. In this work, we present the engineering design of the experimental chamber to demonstrate the space-like conditions. The main chamber is cylindrical in shape of 32-cm diameter and 35-cm height is built with 1-cm thick stainless-steel grade 304 to withstand the extreme pressure difference. Nine stainless-steel tubes with different diameters are welded to the main chamber to represent ports for connecting with a high efficiency turbo pump, which can provide a vacuum of 10$^{-10}$ Torr, a cooling sample stage, gas injection units, and IR optical ports. The cooling stage with a sample holder located in the center of the chamber is connected with a liquid nitrogen dewar via an aluminum base with high heat transfer to maintain the extremely low temperature condition at the sample. After the main chamber is pumped to the required level of pressure, the interested molecules can be injected onto the sample holder through a gas injection unit. The resulted chemical species formed on the sample holder surface can be probed through IR spectroscopy using an FTIR spectrometer and a MCT detector connected to the chamber. The IR resulted spectrum will reveal the finger-prints of the chemical substants formed on the sample holder surface.
