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LEGO® Block Structures as a Sub-Kelvin Thermal Insulator
- Source :
- Scientific Reports, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-4 (2019), Scientific Reports
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Nature Publishing Group, 2019.
-
Abstract
- We report measurements of the thermal conductance of a structure made from commercial Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) modules, known as LEGO® blocks, in the temperature range from 70 mK to 1.8 K. A power law for the sample’s thermal conductivity κ = (8.7 ± 0.3) × 10−5T 1.75±0.02 WK−1 m−1 was determined. We conclude that this ABS/void compound material provides better thermal isolation than well-known bulk insulator materials in the explored temperature range, whilst maintaining solid support. LEGO blocks represent a cheap and superlative alternative to materials such as Macor or Vespel. In our setup, 2 to over 1 K, without any significant change to the base temperature of the dilution refrigerator. This work suggests that custom-built modular materials with even better thermal performance could be readily and cheaply produced by 3D printing.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Materials science
lcsh:Medicine
Insulator (electricity)
Article
Techniques and instrumentation
03 medical and health sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
0302 clinical medicine
Thermal conductivity
Thermal insulation
Dilution refrigerator
Composite material
lcsh:Science
Multidisciplinary
Vespel
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene
business.industry
lcsh:R
Atmospheric temperature range
Applied physics
030104 developmental biology
chemistry
lcsh:Q
business
Macor
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 9
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....bc81771e6f07b2d0de37cc9438007d5c