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ORNL Team Recognized as Highly Cited Researchers

Fifteen scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (CSA CSM) have been named 2018 Highly Cited Researchers. The list recognizes scientists for exceptional performance, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top one percent by citations.

LHC Ends Second Season, Prepares for New Achievements

Expert team members from CERN turned off the Large Hadron Collider in early December, ending the successful second run of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. The complex will be shut down for about two years, according to CERN, enabling both major upgrades and renovation work.

MIT Discovers Material that Performs as Both Topological Insulator and Superconductor

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports that the exact same material can be turned into either a topological insulator or a superconductor. The new findings reveal that in a single-layer crystal form, at temperatures from less than 1 K to the liquid nitrogen range of -320°F, hosts three distinct phases,...

Cool Innovations for Clean Energy

Cryogenic technology is making it possible for liquid air, nitrogen and methane—including methane derived from cow slurry—to play roles in combating global warming. Read more about these efforts in coverage from physicsworld.

Why Physics Needs a Post-LHC Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, and scientists there have pushed the frontiers of particle physics past old boundaries, achieving higher energies and greater numbers of collisions than ever before. So far all the colliders up through the LHC have revealed particles that behave...

Pushing the Extra Cold Frontiers of Superconducting Science

Measuring the properties of superconducting materials in magnetic fields at temperatures close to absolute zero is considered difficult but necessary by many researchers, helping them understand quantum properties.

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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