9407930 Neuhauser San Francisco State University and the Direct Detection group at Berkeley are beginning a project to investigate the use of superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) arrays as phonon spectrometers for the detection of weakly interacting dark matter particle candidates. The STJ arrays will be fabricated in the Thin Film Laboratory at SFSU, and initial testing will be done in a 300 mK cryostat at SFSU. Recently an opportunity has arisen to make use of an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR) at Berkeley for testing the devices. The availability of this cryostat will enable "proof of principle" experiments on small samples at 80 mK, closer to the 20 mK temperature planned for operation of the detectors. The ADR will be instrumented with an experimental stage and cryogenic preamplifiers for initial device tests during this award period. ***
