Cold Facts Digital – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

60 Years of DESY: From Hamburg Particle Accelerator to Global Research Center

For the past 60 years, fundamental research has been carried out at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. In those 60 years, DESY has become a world leader in accelerator technology, structure research, particle physics and astroparticle physics. DESY has developed pioneering technologies, which have been used by scientists from...

Jefferson Lab to be Major Partner in Brookhaven Electron Ion Collider Project

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has taken the next step toward the construction of an Electron Ion Collider (EIC) in the United States. DOE announced that the collider will be sited at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton NY. In addition, DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility...

FDA Expands Clearance of Cryoablation Technology for Kidney, Liver, Head and Neck Tumors

The US Food and Drug Administration has expanded the clearance of a cryoablation technology platform for the treatment of cancerous and benign tumors of the kidney, liver, ear, nose or throat, according to a press release from the product’s manufacturer.

The Pocket-Sized Particle Accelerator

The accelerator-on-a-chip is just a prototype, but its design and fabrication techniques can be scaled up to deliver particle beams accelerated enough to perform cutting-edge experiments that don’t require the power of a massive accelerator. By placing these chips in a series, researchers from SLAC National Laboratory and Stanford University...

QuinStar Completes Contribution to NASA Mission

QuinStar (CSA CSM) has successfully completed a 28-month program with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that developed flight hardware for the NASA-ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission. QuinStar’s deliverables included Ka-band solid-state power amplifiers—an enabling element of the communication payload for the high speed, space-to-earth datalink.

Italian Energy Company Doubles Blend of Hydrogen

Italian energy infrastructure company Snam has doubled the volume of hydrogen it is blending with natural gas in the transmission network of southern Contursi Terme, Salerno, Italy, in a new experiment that would enable the reduction of the region’s carbon dioxide emissions by five million tons.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon Cryocoolers

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...

Latest in Cryo Central

Cryogenic Electronics

Randall Kirschman, consulting physicist, Mountain View, California ExtElect@gmail.com Cryogenic electronics—the operation of electronic devices, circuits, and systems at cryogenic temperatures—has been a valuable technology for decades. Cryogenic electronics (also referred to as low-temperature electronics, or cold electronics) can be based on semiconductive devices, on superconductive devices, or on a combination...

Particle Physics: High Energy Physics

Cryogenics and High-Energy Physics 1. From symmetry magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000627: Cryogenics is the study of how materials behave at temperatures near absolute zero. In high-energy particle accelerators, such frigid temperatures reduce the electrical resistance of wires in superconducting magnets, increasing the magnet strength and allowing faster particle acceleration. The same holds...

HTS Degaussing Systems

From the Spring 2009 issue of Cold Facts (Volume 25, Number 2): Thanks to a joint project by the US Navy and a number of industry partners, high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology is now at the heart of an advanced degaussing system aboard the USS Higgins at the naval station...

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

From http://www.superconductors.org: An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what’s going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body’s water and...

Latest in Ask the Experts

Power usage: cryogenic systems vs. regular refrigerators

A recent project highlighted to me that closed cycle cryogenic cooling systems use far more electrical power to reduce temperatures by a few watts than regular refrigerators. I am sure it must be something to do with the extra difficulty of removing the heat from the liquid nitrogen or similar...

Redundancy strategies for mechanical -80C freezers

I was wondering what kind of redundancy strategies are people using for their mechanical -80C freezers? I am aware of the following. Please add if you are doing something different. 1) 1 Backup freezer for every 10 freezers – Empty and maintained at -80C at all times 2) Backup C02...

Safety guidelines for handling cryo vessels of nitrogen

I am looking for any safety guidelines for handling cryogenic vessels of nitrogen indoors and outdoors. I am especially interested in recommendations for area monitors to detect leaks, flow detection devices, etc.

Method to move components in a cryogenic environment

Does anyone know of a method with which to reliably move components in a cryogenic environment? We are interested in moving detectors in a cryogenically cooled (2K) vacuum chamber, which is contained within a larger cryostat/isolation vacuum with thermal shields. As the desired horizontal or vertical displacement is between 10...

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