Calibration of low-temperature ac susceptometers with a copper cylinder standard

A high-quality low-temperature ac susceptometer is calibrated by comparing the measured ac susceptibility of a copper cylinder with its eddy-current ac susceptibility accurately calculated. Different from conventional calibration techniques that compare the measured results with the known property of a standard sample at certain fixed temperature T, field amplitude H(m), and frequency f, to get a magnitude correction factor, here, the electromagnetic properties of the copper cylinder are unknown and are determined during the calibration of the ac susceptometer in the entire T, H(m), and f range. It is shown that the maximum magnitude error and the maximum phase error of the susceptometer are less than 0.7% and 0.3 degrees, respectively, in the region T=5-300 K and f=111-1111 Hz at H(m)=800 A/m, after a magnitude correction by a constant factor as done in a conventional calibration. However, the magnitude and phase errors can reach 2% and 4.3 degrees at 10,000 and 11 Hz, respectively. Since the errors are reproducible, a large portion of them may be further corrected after a calibration, the procedure for which is given. Conceptual discussions concerning the error sources, comparison with other calibration methods, and applications of ac susceptibility techniques are presented.