Stabilization of the line of sight of a cryogenic optical system

Abstract

Cryogenic optical systems are often mounted in vacuum cryostat. An interesting concern in the mechanical design is how to maintain the stability of the line of sight (LOS) of the cryogenic optical system when it is cooled down to very low temperature. To investigate this problem an experimental cryogenic optical system, its mounting structure, and a cryostat were designed and fabricated. After assembling them together, a test experiment for measuring the LOS drift was carried out. Finally, the test results will be presented in this paper.