Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

A microwave synthesizer is required for the development and exploitation of a broadband microwave spectrometer. This technique allows one to cool a sample to as low as a few hundredths of a degree above absolute zero, and then to measure the sample's microwave power absorption over a wide range of different microwave frequencies. This spectrometer will be the first of its kind in the world, and the research tools grant will provide the source of microwave power needed for the measurements. One topic that will be studied is the behaviour of high temperature superconductors at low temperatures, where we will be able to uncover how the microwave power losses in a superconductor are influenced by defects and impurities. More generally, the instrument will allow us to investigate new states of matter appearing in metals below 1 degree above absolute zero.