The New Labs

Why did we move? The old labs flooded three times. The entire walls facing an outdoor balcony were full of mold and had to be completely replaced… twice, as in two consecutive summers! Humidity would swing all the way down to 10% RH during a Santa Ana wind, and as high as 70% RH, when the HVAC misbehaved, with same day swings of up to 40% RH. The lab temperature would have same day swings of 6 C. Finally, the labs were noisy: 70dBA!

Thanks to the incredible support of UC San Diego EVC, Division of Physical Sciences, and the Department of Physics, new labs were renovated over a period of three years and designed by HDR. The labs were almost finished on 4/19 and they are currently undergoing final tune up to be stable under the new extreme weather driven by climate change (outdoors being hotter and either extremely humid or dry).

Panoramic of the new labs on 6/19:

Panoramic of the strontium room in the new labs on 7/19.

We started moving optical tables on 4/15/19, and the biggest strontium vacuum chamber on 6/19, and by 7/19 everything was back as we were before moving.

Parameter	Target	Performance
Temperature	+/- 0.1 F fixed air supply T (walls and optical tables)	+/- 0.06 F reported 🙂
Humidity	+/- 5 % RH	+/- 3 % RH
Cooling	60+ kW (air + water)	So far so good 🙂
Air quality	ISO 7 cleanroom	ISO 8
Acoustic 63Hz – 8kHz	NC-30	NC-40
EM/RF near DC – 10 kHz	<<1mG pk to pk	~ 0.6 mG at 60 Hz pk to pk (elevator drives a 0.4 mG signal)
Vibrations, floor	VC-E	VC-E

Our gyro is truly portable 😀