66 -- Physical Property Management System

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’ s (NIST) Electromagnetic’s Division has a requirement for a Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) which shall includes a super-conducting magnet with 9 T capability. This unique system is for research on low field, low noise magnetic sensors. NIST will rely on this equipment to aid in development of metrologies and nanostructured material to increase the signal to noise in room temperature magnetic thin film field sensors. These devices will be incorporated into systems for biomedical, nondestructive failure analysis, data storage, Homeland Security, and other magnetic field measurement and mapping applications.Quantum Design has extensive experience producing and refining the physical property measurement systems (PPMS) and at this time the only source for the equipment that will measure and map the ultra-low magnetic fields as off-the-shelf equipment. The QD PPMS-9 is a unique system that is not available from any other company. The system comes with a super-conducting magnet with 9 T capabilities. The most significant features are: A) “Ultra-low field capability” This capability gives residual field of less than 10-5 T along the 4 cm bore. With the combination of the low field and 9T capabilities, we will be able to investigate both the magnetic properties of pinning layers and high field sensors, as well as noise in low field sensors. B) “Horizontal Sample Rotator” is a feature that NIST does not have in a high field, high temperature magnetometer (up to 1000 K). This feature will be critical in measuring the electrical transport in magnetic field sensors as a function of the angle of the field. These measurements will be conducted with the “Resistivity option”. C) Low rate of helium consumption in a standard dewar. D) Adjustable temperature control of standard system from 1.9 to 350 K. Upgradeable to 1000 K. E) DC magnetization sensitivity range down to 2.5 x 10 –15 emu. F) Field uniformity ±0.01% over 5.5 x 1 cm diameter cylindrical volume G) Field resolution of 0.02 mT up to 1 T; 0.2 mT up to 9 T H) Clear bore of 2.5 cm I) The vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) option, will be used for critical mesurements for several reasons: i) The system must have a magnetometer in order to have the low field option. ii) The VSM is significantly faster than existing systems at NIST, thereby allowing NIST to save factors of 2 in helium consumption while making extensive temperature and field dependent measurements. iii) The VSM is the only magnetometer upgradeable to 1000 K, which at this time is not available in any other magnetometer at NIST with 9 T capability. It will also ramp to temperature in very short times (order of 2 minutes). iv) The VSM is upgradeable to measurements of transverse moment in vertical field. This will enhance NIST's capabilities by allowing measurements of rotations of magnetization (spin spring) effects. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Electromagnetic’s Division intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with Quantum Design for the above requirement, under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1) as implemented by FAR 6.302-1. There is no solicitation available. See Number Note 22 (http://www.fedbizopps.gov)