Technical Request: Gas Cell Filling

Posted by Chad Orzel on September 1, 2010
(5)
More »

I doubt that this will actually work, but then the Web has brought me some improbable successes before, so it’s worth a shot:

I have a sealed glass cell (Pyrex, I think, if it matters) that I would like to get re-filled with a mix of rare gases– partial pressures of 100mT Ne, 30mT Ar, 30 mT Kr. This will contain an RF plasma discharge to serve as a spectroscopic reference for my experiments, and thus needs to be very clean– I can’t have impurities coming out of the walls and quenching the metastable atoms I’m producing in the discharge.

The company that initially made the cell has not returned email in the last month, and given that it’s actually one guy who’s nearing retirement, may well be out of business. If anybody knows a good source for this sort of gas cell, leave a comment or send me email. As I said, I have an existing cell that can be re-filled, or if that’s impractical, I can buy a new one.

(5)
More »

Comments

  1. #1 dfphil
    September 1, 2010

    I’d say that I’d do it for you but we don’t have any krypton. (I’m actually not sure we have argon any more either. We used to.) However, if I needed a cell like that filled and didn’t want to go buy the krypton and argon, I’d probably try to get the guy at Triad Technology – Archie Brown’s company – http://www.triadtechno.com/ to do it. He’s been pretty accommodating to us when we wanted weird vapor cells. (I never really liked his lasers, but his vapor cells seem pretty solid.)

    If you really find yourself having a problem and Triad Technology can’t help, let me know.

  2. #2 Mary
    September 1, 2010

    I came here to recommend Triad Technology too. They made some nifty custom gas cells for us at one time, the size and shape of a large coin.

    Companies that make gas lasers might be able to do this too — (I’d at least talk to Melles Griot about it, though I could see them making you a new cell more readily than re-filling your old one.)

    I seem to remember that we used to get our argon-ion laser tubes refurbished by this company: http://www.evergreenlaser.com/ … They were willing to re-fill those plasma tubes, so they might be willing to refill yours, even though it’s not technically part of a laser.

  3. #3 H
    September 1, 2010

    We got a lot of scientific glass from Allen Scientific:

    http://www.allenglass.com/

    They’re great, do custom jobs, and they can control gas.

  4. #4 Anonymous
    September 3, 2010

    i have found dealing with archie brown a total disaster.

    perhaps he just hates us, but i basically have never gotten what i was promised.

  5. #5 uqbar
    September 7, 2010

    Sounds like the start of a murder mystery: Three inert gases are locked in a sealed cell; when the investigator arrives, they are all mysteriously missing . . .