Mazin Lab at UCSB

Astronomers - if you want to complain, get in the comments!

Astrophysics TIER List [COMEDY] Have you ever wondered what subfield of Astrophysics is the best? Here is a Tier List to settle the debate. The opinions are strongly expressed but weakly he...

A new video that will hopefully ensure I am never considered for Department Chair.

Physics TIER List [COMEDY] Have you ever wondered what field of Physics is the best? Here is a Tier List to settle the debate. The opinions are strongly expressed but weakly held. Hope...

Sometimes you just have to make a custom cable...

Basic Lab Skills: How to Make a Cable One of the most fundamental things you need to do in a Physics Lab is make cables to electrically connect various pieces of instrumentation. In this video we...

Every time you plug something in to a 208V 50A socket things can get dicey...

Will it Flood and/or Explode? Refurbished Quantum Testbed's First Power Up Cryogenic testbeds are critical instruments for testing quantum devices like qubits and quantum sensors. We have obtained a pair of adiabatic demagnetization...

Turns out Physics is Mostly Plumbing...

Physics is (Mostly) Plumbing Come along as Professor Mazin gives you a tour of some of the less glamourous parts of his lab at UCSB. It might seem like Physicists are always making Bose-...

We have a new video out on our first foray into biophysics! This one also has our cool new animated intro starting 40 seconds in.

We Built The Most Powerful Optical Microscope In The World Out Of Spare Parts And Lab Snacks The detectors we develop to look for planets turn out to have applications closer to home, which isn't really a surprise considering they are basically the b...

New video where we build a frame for our new quantum testbed!

$600,000 Terminated Quantum Twins Will be Back Cryogenic testbeds are critical instruments for testing quantum devices like qubits and quantum sensors. We have obtained a pair of adiabatic demagnetization...

For those who have been following our YouTube channel, you can now support the channel by buying things in our new Merch store!

ExperimentalAstro - Etsy Shop The Merch Store for YouTube by ExperimentalAstro located in Santa Barbara, California.

The Lord of the Frames!

Building an 80/20 Frame for our Dual ADR Quantum Testbed Cryogenic testbeds are critical instruments for testing quantum devices like qubits and quantum sensors. We have obtained a pair of adiabatic demagnetization...

Assembling the World’s Highest Trace Density Quantum Sample Box

In order to test the quantum devices we make we first need to mount them into a cryogenic sample box and then wirebond them to electrically connect them. This video shows the final assembly steps. We have previous videos showing the earlier build steps here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYDG6CkmnWk&list=PLQo-qcY9-qkb6HJMUXgtwCG3P5vyvGgVp

This cryogenic sample boxes was designed for the MEC instrument (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/abc60f), permanently installed at the Subaru 8 meter telescope in Hawaii, feature the highest RF trace density of any cryogenic sample box I know of. If you disagree, correct me in the comments! The boxes are optimized for use with our cutting edge FLAX cables (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10381740) for interfacing. These FLAX cables are being commercialized by Maybell Quantum (https://www.maybellquantum.com/flexlines).

The final step in making one of our cryogenic quantum sample boxes is installing the microwave connectors and circuit boards with solder paste, and then putting the whole thing on a hot plate to reflow the solder and fuse it all together. This one is tricky, with most of the work happening under the microscope.

Mazin Lab videos show the inner working of an experimental astrophysics group that lives at the interface of astrophysics and quantum physics. We use our amazing quantum sensors called MKIDs to search for exoplanets around nearby stars. For more info, see http://mazinlab.org.

Assembling the World’s Highest Trace Density Quantum Sample Box In order to test the quantum devices we make we first need to mount them into a cryogenic sample box and then wirebond them to electrically connect them. Thi...

A UCSB lecture on the math behind exoplanet detection.

Exoplanets at the Beach: UC Santa Barbara Class on the Physics of Exoplanet Detection So far this channel has had a lot more Experiment than Astrophysics, so in this video I am trying to balance it out. I recorded a lecture in the class I am t...

What's inside Quaid? Not Randy Quaid, thank god.

Investigating Quaid, A Mystery $300,000 Quantum Testbed Cryogenic testbeds are vital parts of testing quantum devices like qubits and quantum sensors.We have obtained a pair of adiabatic demagnetization refrigerat...

Performing a heart transplant on a dilution refrigerator.

Fixing a Superfluid Helium Leak The vacuum leak in the dilution refrigerator used in our M-Echelle instrument turned out to be a superfluid helium leak, unrelated to the front window that w...

What is inside the mystery cryostat?

Unboxing a $300,000 Mystery Quantum Computer We have obtained a pair of lightly used adiabatic demagnetization refrigerators (ADRs, magnetic refrigerators that get below 100 mK) previously used for quan...

Plasma Gun Evaporates Metal to Coat Wafers for Superconducting Quantum Circuits

Plasma Gun Evaporates Metal to Coat Wafers for Superconducting Quantum Circuits Sputtering is a process where a plasma is used to evaporate metal from a bulk target and deposit it into a thin, precise layer on a wafer. This video shows h...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCs6gfE1f8

Jenny and Cosmo's Adventures in Custom Electronics Graduate Student Jenny and, on occasion her dog Cosmo, are part of team working on custom electronics for reading out our detectors. This video discusses how...

How do we open a window to let light into a fridge that is near absolute zero? Like this:

The Coldest Thing in the Universe That You Can Look At - Part 1 Space is 2.7 Kelvin , but the inside of our fridge is 0.01 K. Through very careful window design we try to make windows that enable us to look with our naked...