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US 10,519,537 B2Granted
Elemental alkali-metal dispenser
AssigneeUtah State University Research Foundation
InventorsDavid Hostutler, Matthew Bigelow, Rudolph N. Kohn, Jr., Spencer Olson, Matthew Squires, Daniel R. Blakley, Eric Imhof, Brian Kasch, Mary Spanjers
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An alkali-metal dispenser to dispense highly pure rubidium in a high-vacuum environment while not negatively impacting the high-vacuum pressure level. The alkali-metal dispenser is operable in various vapor-deposition applications or to provide a highly pure elemental-alkali metal in cold-atom magneto-optical traps.
Claims12
A method for making an alkali metal dispenser, the method comprising:
- vacuum-baking a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) volume;
- after vacuum-baking the HOPG volume, further vacuum-baking the HOPG volume while the HOPB is positioned proximate an elemental-alkali metal until the HOPG volume has increased in size, the HOPG volume with increased size becoming an HOPG-alkali metal volume;
- and
- vacuum-baking the HOPG-alkali metal volume in the absence of the elemental-alkali metal to remove the elemental-alkali metal from the HOPG-alkali metal volume until an outer-most layer of the HOPG-alkali metal volume is free of the elemental-alkali metal.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.