26 December 2022

A unique breakthrough in the field of fundamental science has been achieved by BSU scientists. During the first low-temperature tests of a niobium superconducting resonator, a phase transition to the superconducting state was observed. This result was one of the final stages in the five-year joint work of scientists from the Research Institute of Yap BSU, the Physico-Technical Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (PTI), the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia) and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna (JINR).

The work was carried out on the order of JINR within the NIKA megascience project. It provides for the creation of a new accelerator complex for studying the properties of dense baryonic matter. This will allow us to recreate in laboratory conditions the state of matter in which the Universe was in the first moments after the Big Bang.

Thus, according to the director of the Research Institute of Yap Sergei Maksimenko, Belarusian scientists are making their contribution to solving the most important fundamental scientific problem. At the same time, the development of a technology for designing, manufacturing, testing and tuning is an important practical result, which makes it possible to organize the entire cycle of manufacturing superconducting resonators in Belarus in the future. “In fact, the country is ready to join a small club of selected states that have such technologies (China, the USA, Italy, Germany, etc.) and organize the production of products that are in demand today in a wide range of accelerators. This is an example of how the solution of a fundamental scientific problem leads to advanced practical results,” Sergei Maksimenko summed up.

The work in the study was carried out as follows. The tests were carried out by a team of the Physics and Technology Laboratory of the Research Institute of Yap, headed by Dmitry Bychenko. The design of the resonator was carried out by the Research Institute of Yap together with scientists from MEPhI; the manufacture of parts and their welding by an electron beam in vacuum was carried out at the Physicotechnical Institute. Also, a vacuum cryostat for helium temperatures (manufactured by the Belarusian company Vactime) was designed at the Research Institute of Yap, equipment was provided and all operations were carried out on past and future measurements in the high-frequency region. The cryostat with liquid helium was delivered by truck from JINR.

It should be emphasized, noted Sergei Maksimenko, that in order to complete the work and supply JINR with two niobium resonators, a series of experiments to measure the quality factor and operating frequency of the resonators, as well as its tuning, will have to be performed. “After observing the transition to the superconducting state, all members of a large scientific team from the two countries have no doubts about the successful completion of the contract and are confident in the further development of the created technology and its industrial implementation,” summed up the director of the Research Institute of Yap BSU.