Leer en español Contact us

The Low Temperatures Lab is a research lab of the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica and an associated laboratory of the Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. It is located in the Centro Atómico Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina.

Mission and vision

The Low Temperatures Lab research lines focus on various areas of experimental condensed matter physics in which the laboratory is at the forefront in Argentina and internationally. This fundamental research is also aimed at developing niche experimental techniques and providing stimulating environment for young students aiming to study the structural, magnetic, thermal and transport properties of materials relevant for technological applications. The research programs are developed with the following general goals in mind:

• To identify research areas with possible long-term technological applications.
• To contribute to the education and professional training in experimental condensed matter Physics by supporting the academic activities of the Instituto Balseiro (CNEA and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo).
• To contribute to the research and education in experimental condensed matter Physics by strengthening the collaborations with academic and scientific partners
• To produce the cryogenic liquids required for our studies and for experimental research and development in working groups within the Centro Atómico Bariloche.

History

The Low Temperatures Lab of the Centro Atómico Bariloche has more than 65 years of tradition and is one of the initial laboratories envisioned by José Antonio Balseiro to provide scientific training to the students at the “Instituto de Física Bariloche”, now Instituto Balseiro. The original idea of Balseiro, supported by a collaboration with Prof. James Daniels from British Columbia University (1958-1959), was to establish a Low Temperatures laboratory at Bariloche that would perform research in Nuclear Physics. The original project continued with the arrival in 1961 of Prof. John Wheatley from Urbana University that gave a strong momentum to the technical activities of the lab. When Wheatley left Bariloche in 1963 the lab had cooled down from room to 15 millikelvin temperature by developing and installing hydrogen and helium 4 and 3 liquefiers as well as adiabatic demagnetization. More importantly, the technical and scientific tasks directed by Wheatley were performed while consolidating a working group of graduate and undergraduate students and technicians.

That first group of pioneers started with the students María Elena Porta, Oscar Vilches and “Coco” Cotignola, the group of three that went in 1958 to Vancouver to start building the scientific equipment in Prof. Daniel’s laboratory. Later, with the arrival of Wheatley in Bariloche, Ana Celia Mota and Francisco “Paco” de la Cruz joined the group of students, and the technician Heriberto Tutzauer was incorporated into the technical activities. This group of pioneers consolidated the first scientific and technical activities of the Low Temperature Lab. The first five students of the lab finished their PhD thesis performing research fully at Bariloche or in collaboration with other universities. They strongly contributed to the education of physicists in the undergraduate program of the Instituto Balseiro in those initial years.

During the following decades (1960-1980), the activities of the lab enriched in the variety of topics studied and technical developments. The scientific and teaching efforts conducted by Paco and María Elena de la Cruz resulted in the consolidation of the Low Temperatures lab as an internationally recognized lab in the field of superconductivity, particularly with the advent of high-Tc superconductivity in 1986. The incorporation of Julián Sereni to the lab in 1969 also resulted in the development of an internationally recognized research line in strongly correlated electronic systems. These achievements were built in close collaboration with the more than 50 students that Paco, Julián and others have supervised, establishing the mission and the vision that the lab possesses nowadays.

Currently the lab continues the tradition initiated by these pioneers and performs research in superconductivity and strongly correlated electronic systems, while strongly supporting the education of young researchers in experimental condensed matter Physics at low temperatures. The students and grandstudents of Paco and Julián are now the current researchers that have taken up the torch of the low temperatures in Patagonia.