TE-Cooling Chamber

This sample chamber is designed from scratch to serve the following purposes

• Be used in transmission and reflection mode
• keep the sample at -10°C
• Keep the sample in vacuum
• Keep the sample at a presence of a certain gas

Transmission and reflection

A large front window is used to measure emission in reflection mode. The back window is used for excitation which is mostly limited by the TEC chip aperture.

Temperature

Currently, the chamber can maintain -10°C, but the large area of the chamber can host a larger heat sink with larger fan which will allow for lower temperatures.

Vacuum and Purging gas

The chamber has two inlet/outlet which can be used to either vacuum the chamber, purge with a gas or keep a gas flow.

Design intent

This chamber was designed with the following intentions

• Pancake design to fit the limited space
• Large area for dissipating heat and mounting heat sink

Main Parts

• TEC chip (CH-109-1.4-1.5-Potted) from TE-Technology
• Thermometer (TH100PT) from Thorlabs

The plots for each part can be found on their website. A printout is included with the assembly for your reference

Wiring

TEC chip wires are red and black. They are labeled for the positive and negative connections. A typical working setting for the TEC would be 13 volts with 5 amps. It is highly advised to set the current limiter on the power supply before increasing the voltage. Two green wires are for the thermometer. The temperature can be derived by reading the resistance and comparing it against the plot from the manufacturer (printed out). The heat sink fan is on the back can be connected according to the color code. A small power supply is modified for the use with the fan in the back.

Assembly

The chamber was assembled and tested and was able to maintain -10°C.

Reference CAD files are available in the GitHub repository.