Under guidance from Bob Clarke and Andrew Gregory from NPL's Electromagnetic & Electrochemical Technologies Department, we have designed a high Q resonator for materials measurement at mm-wavelengths for Qinetiq plc. Using a precision-turned high conductivity spherical mirror and carefully adjusted coupling holes, the resonator will allow precision measurements of the complex permitivity of low loss materials. Fine adjustment of the flat sample mirror is provided. The two waveguide ports - seen below - are connected to a VNA to display the resonance.
TK is finishing up its work on providing hardware to go on ESA's JUICE mission to the Galilean moons - specifically for the THz radiometer on board. A montage of JUICE's planetary objectives - emphasising the high magnetic field present The SWI instrument (SWI) will look at the temperature structure, composition and dynamics of Jupiter's stratosphere as well as the thin atmospheres and exospheres of three of four of the moons first seen by Galileo in the winter of 1610 using his newly invented telescope: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto - just missing out on Io, the most inner one. The SWI - by looking at emissions from the rotation lines of a range of trace gas...
Axions are hypothetical zero spin (scalar) particles whose existance has been postulated as part of an explanation of Charge/Parity symmetry of the strong force. The Standard Model of Particle Physics provide no direct explanation as to why the product of Charge Conjugation and Parity are conserved by the strong force - experimental evidence (such as the absence of any electrical diple moment in the Neutron) suggest that CP is conserved to very high precision. An additional field and spontaniously broken symmetry provide a possible explanation, and the symmtery breaking process generates the Axion. The mass of the Axion is not predicted and interest has grown as a possible candidate for the ...
TK and QMC Instruments has been privileged to supply - over the last decade - many of the receiver components used by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration to generate the first image at 1.3mm (230 GHz) of the supermassive black hole in Messier 87. (Image from EHT) The Event Horizon Telescope is make up of many mm-wave telescopes and arrays of telecopes to provide the long baseline (the size of the Earth) to give the necessary angularresolution to resolve the area around the Black Hole. (Credit European Southern Observatory for the map) For the Hawaii-based Submillimeter Array (SMA) of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian ...
TK is recruiting toolmaking apprentices to start their training in September, and we all enjoyed our day at the Apprentice Fair on Saturday, 9th March in Horsham's Drill Hall: Left to right - Works Manager Stuart Froud, TK apprentice Zac Freeman and Apprentice Supervisor David Cox showing potential apprentices and their parents what we do. On the table - sitting on our Queen's Award for Exports flag, are a set of parts made for instruments for which will be put into Space. Applications are still open - contact David Roberts at
TK, along with the Institute of Applied Physics in Bern, has been working on set of ground based targets targets for calibrating the Ice Cloud Imager instrument to be flown on Sat-B of the EUMETSAT's MetOp-SG satellite programme, being developed by AIRBUS in Spain These provide precise known radiometric temperatures to calibrate the instrument: for ICI over the 183-664 GHz range, using very low reflection wedges, and novel cryogenic cooling system provided by our co-supplier, IABG in Germany Images of the assembled system can be seen below, after final assembly in our clean rooms.