One of the key strategic goals of UCC's Strategic Plan 2017-2022 “Independent Thinking, Shared Ambition” is to ‘be a leading University for research, discovery, innovation, entrepreneurship, commercialisation and societal impact’. The construction and installation of an Ultra-Low Vibration Laboratory in UCC supports the goals of the University’s Strategic Plan. The project will be funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). 

The proposed laboratory space in which the research instruments are to be installed has been identified as the basement of UCC's Kane Science Building. This is an existing 374m² space which, with the appropriate instrumentation installed, will form the basis of a world class quantum matter visualisation research program. 

Modern quantum matter research requires the installation of instrumentation that is both exquisitely sensitive to the laboratory setting and that operates at ultra-low temperatures. To succeed, the physical environment required to house the instrumentation is regarded as an essential component of the research infrastructure, and indeed a core element of the overall scientific instrument. This environment must be prepared and controlled in an exacting fashion, the initial step of which is to condition the space to reject and then attenuate vibrational noise coming from all sources in the building and external environment. This is typically achieved by stiffening and making more massive the physical structure enclosing the instrumentation, to the point that the enclosure infrastructure becomes a key element of the scientific instrument. To achieve this for the Quantum Matter Laboratory at UCC, a specific structural plan has been developed. 

In order for the infrastructure to meet the required specifications, the present amalgam of brickwork and plasterboard walls in the space need to be removed to facilitate the installation of reinforced concrete instrument-enclosures. These will be penetrated only by acoustic isolation doors and by the vacuum/data/power services required for research operations.

Design Team

Contractor

Vision Contracting Limited was appointed in October 2019.

Update

Project Complete

For more information please contact Tim Cronin, Capital Projects Officer UCC @ Tim.cronin@ucc.ie