Caltech Noble Gas Lab

Noble Gas Laboratory

The Noble Gas Lab consists of two magnetic sector mass spectrometers, a GVI (now Thermo) Helix SFT and a MAP 215-50, as well as a Pfeiffer Prisma quadrupole mass spectrometer. Each instrument is accompanied by a fully automated ultra high vacuum system designed to extract noble gases from a wide variety of materials. We routinely use techniques such as conventional vacuum fusion with a double-vacuum furnace, micro-furnace heating with a Photon Machines diode laser stepped heating system, stepwise diffusion in custom-built diffusion cells, and flux melting. Additional information about each system is available below. Our extraction systems are designed to be versatile, so we can typically use any extraction system with any instrument using either existing vacuum connections or simple modifications.