Compressing Spin-Polarized 3He With a Modified Diaphragm Pump

Nuclear spin-polarized (3)He gas at pressures on the order of 100 kPa (1 bar) are required for several applications, such as neutron spin filters and magnetic resonance imaging. The metastability-exchange optical pumping (MEOP) method for polarizing (3)He gas can rapidly produce highly polarized gas, but the best results are obtained at much lower pressure (~0.1 kPa). We describe a compact compression apparatus for polarized gas that is based on a modified commercial diaphragm pump. The gas is polarized by MEOP at a typical pressure of 0.25 kPa (2.5 mbar), and compressed into a storage cell at a typical pressure of 100 kPa. In the storage cell, we have obtained 20 % to 35 % (3)He polarization using pure (3)He gas and 35 % to 50 % (3)He polarization using (3)He-(4)He mixtures. By maintaining the storage cell at liquid nitrogen temperature during compression, the density has been increased by a factor of four.