Lancaster University has shared in a €9.8 million award from the European Commission for the European Microkelvin Platform (EMP), an advanced European Infrastructure providing access to ultralow temperatures near absolute zero.

The only other UK university to share in the award is Royal Holloway, University of London.

The EMP is a consortium of 17 leading partners in Europe in the field of ultralow temperature physics and technology, where Lancaster University is world leading.

The EMP will have a particular focus on the key areas of quantum technology and quantum materials, through the application of sensitive measurement techniques in low noise environments.

Dr Viktor Tsepelin, Reader in Lancaster’s Department of Physics, said :“We are proud to push the frontiers of low temperature research and quantum technology with our partners in the EMP consortia. Here in Lancaster Low Temperature Physics, we are working hard to provide accessible low temperature platforms to the research and industrial communities through the European Microkelvin Platform. We are looking forward to welcoming new users who seek to advance science and technology using low noise, high precision measurements in our world leading infrastructure.”

Central to this four year project is the provision of access for experimental researchers to the unique low temperature infrastructure formed by the EMP consortium, a “European ultralow temperature laboratory without walls”. This access will drive forward progress in the the study of new phenomena, new materials and new devices. Bringing together academic, industrial and technical leaders will amplify the innovation potential that these developments will produce and accelerate their impact on the wider society. To enhance this impact EMP will train European students, scientists, and cryo-engineers working at ultralow temperatures and will disseminate the technical advances, the scientific results and the knowledge base of the EMP.

The EMP project and EMP consortium is coordinated by Professor Dr Christian Enss of Heidelberg University, Germany.

The core of the EMP consortium consists of eight access giving academic institutions, offering a varied and comprehensive portfolio of experimental expertise and facilities. These are: Aalto University (Finland), Basel University (Switzerland), CNRS Grenoble (France), Heidelberg University (Germany), IEP SAS (Slovakia), Lancaster University (United Kingdom), Royal Holloway University of London (United Kingdom), and Technische Universität Wien (Austria).

The technology partners: PTB (Germany), VTT (Finland) and Chalmers Technical University (Sweden) and the industry partners: Basel Precision Instruments GmbH (Switzerland), Bluefors Cryogenics Oy (Finland), CryoConcept (France), Leiden Cryogenics (Netherland), Magnicon GmbH (Germany), and Oxford Instruments (United Kingdom) provide a base to exploit technological innovations and the forum for the transfer of scientific knowledge to wider applications.

The EMP represents an Advanced Community that evolved from the European MICROKELVIN Consortium (2009-2013).