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Inside Microsoft’s Quantum Labs in Sydney

As their nuclear warheads decay, the US military captures the helium-3 and supplies it to physicists like Professor David Reilly who, with his team comprising some of the sharpest minds in the world, uses it to cool down the dilution fridges that help chip away at what could be the...

ESA’s Technology Image of the Week: Jupiter Antenna That Came in From the Cold

The Sub-millimeter Wave Instrument of ESA’s Juice mission will survey the churning atmosphere of Jupiter and the scanty atmospheres of its Galilean moons. Testing took place in ESA’s custom-built Low-temperature Near-field Terahertz chamber, or Lorentz. The first chamber of its kind, the 2.8-m diameter Lorentz chamber can perform high-frequency radio-frequency...

Developments Towards Memristor-based Cryogenic Control Electronics for Solid-state Quantum Systems Enable Future Quantum Devices

A quantum device can be defined as a device whose functionality or principle of operation depends essentially on quantum mechanical effects and are inescapable nowadays, primarily to satiate the ever-increasing appetite for slimmer gadgets. As such, the ever-increasing improvement of nanofabrication processes has led to promising demonstration of high quality...

No Visitors but Teeming with Life: What’s Going on Inside the Natural History Museum?

The main exhibition room at the Natural History Museum in London is filled with specimens collected by explorers, teaching us about the evolution of life on our planet. In the bowels of the museum—empty due to Covid-19—scientists are working to protect the planet for the future, as well as preserving...

Paragraf Takes Graphene to Cryogenic Temperatures

Graphene has long been pursued as a medium for electronics in the world of academia. However, until recently, it has struggled to make its way into the industry. Paragraf, a UK-based company, is the first and only company to achieve this feat to date. Two months ago, All About Circuits...

Fully Integrated ‘Hot Qubit’ Quantum Processor Using Commercially Available Technology

On May 13, Equal1 Laboratories (Equal1), a silicon-based quantum computing company, announced the company is the first to demonstrate a fully integrated quantum processor unit (QPU) operating at 3.7 kelvin―a major milestone with implications for the trajectory of quantum computing.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Two-Phase Flows

Two-phase flows are those flows in which there is a mixture of two physical states (solid, liquid or vapor). In cryogenic applications, such flows are almost always a mixture of a cryogenic liquid along with its corresponding vapor. A mixture of liquid helium and helium vapor would be a typical...

Supercritical Fluids

A supercritical fluid is defined as a substance whose temperature and pressure exceed those of its critical point. Every pure substance has a critical point that is defined in thermodynamic space by a critical temperature and a corresponding critical pressure. For example, the critical point for helium has a critical...

Brayton Cycle

The Brayton cycle is one of the many thermodynamic cycles used to generate cooling at cryogenic temperatures. Strictly speaking, when referring to cooling we should call this the reverse Brayton cycle as the original Brayton cycle describes the process of power generation or propulsion via a gas turbine. In many...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnets

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. Particle physics uses accelerators to recreate the conditions of the early universe in an attempt to piece together the complex puzzle of how we got to where we are today. These huge machines are used...

Energy Storage

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. With power lines increasingly congested and prone to instability, strategic injection of brief bursts of real power can play a crucial role in maintaining grid reliability. Small-scale Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) systems, based on...

Astronomy

ASTRONOMY IN SPACE by Peter V. Mason, retired, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Visiting Associate, California Institute of Technology. Pmason@alumni.caltech.edu In thinking about the reasons to perform astronomy in space, we first consider the effect of the earth’s atmosphere. On a scale of decreasing energy, gamma rays, cosmic rays, X-rays and...

Cryocoolers

What is a Cryocooler? A mechanism that can extract heat from an object (cooler) and by doing so draw its temperature down below approximately 150 Kelvin (cryo). — (Courtesy Dr. Willy Gully) What is the difference between a Cryocooler and a Cryostat? A cryostat is any device designed to maintain...

Latest in Ask the Experts

An Issue of Pressure and Flow Rate in a Supply Tank

Please help solve this problem: A supply tank requires a vaporizer to generate sufficient pressure to pump stored fluid up into a vehicle or tank. The available head is limited as the tank level falls and it is important to minimize the system pressure drop to maintain the desired flow...

Using MLI on VJ Line Joints or Cryo Storage Tanks

When installing Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) blankets on VJ line joints or cryo storage tanks should they be wrapped and tied down tight or loose? These are usually pre-cut to size. Also should they have an access hole at the point of where the molecular sieve is installed to help...

Separated layers of ice over a pipe

I want to know that why there are different layers of ice over a pipe carrying a cryogenic fluid, each layer separated with clear marks / lines? What do these layers signify?

Using nitrogen as a cryogen

Is it possible to achieve -200˚C using nitrogen as a cryogen?

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