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Novel Lenses Enable X-ray Microscopy with Record Resolution

Researchers at DESY have reported the creation of novel lenses that enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution. The new lenses consist of over 10,000 alternating layers of a new material combination—tungsten carbide and silicon carbide—that allowed the team to achieve a focus spot size with a diameter of less than...

ICC20 Accepting Abstracts for 2018 Conference

Abstract submission is now open for the 20th International Cryocooler Conference (ICC20), the premier global gathering on cryocooler technology. The meeting will feature oral and poster presentation sessions, plus CSA's Foundations of Cryocoolers short course.

Physicists Develop Faster Method to Create Bose-Einstein Condensates

MIT physicists have improved the cooling techniques used to cool atoms into Bose-Einstein condensates. The new method is faster than the conventional one and conserves a large fraction of the original atoms.

A New, Cold Window into Electron Behavior

Physicists at MIT and Princeton University have developed a technique that can peer deep beneath the surface of a material to identify the energies and momenta of electrons there.

Linde Lifts Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloons High

The iconic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons once again soared above the streets of New York City thanks to helium supplied by Linde North America, Inc. Linde supplied some 300,000 cubic feet of helium to the parade this year, the 23rd consecutive year of its partnership with Macy’s.

Physicists Propose Superfluid Helium Dark Matter Detector

Physicists from Brown University have devised a new strategy for directly detecting dark matter with a tub of superfluid helium. The idea is that dark matter particles passing through the tub should, on very rare occasions, smack into the nucleus of a helium atom.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Cold Compressors

A common way to provide cooling below the normal boiling point of helium (4.2K) is to reduce the pressure above the bath of liquid helium, thus also reducing the bath’s equilibrium saturation temperature. For example, to produce a 1.8K bath of liquid helium, the saturation pressure has to be reduced...

Kapitza Conductance

Kapitza conductance refers to the heat transfer between a solid surface and a fluid that covers that surface. Fundamentally, it describes the inherent difficulty in transferring energy from a solid to the fluid covering the solid surface. This phenomenon was first observed by P. L. Kapitza in 1941 while studying...

Thermosyphons

A thermosyphon (or thermosiphon) is a device that transfers heat via natural convection in a fluid. The natural convection is driven by gravity with the colder, denser fluid flowing downhill and the warmer, less dense fluid flowing back up. Thus, thermosyphons connect an object to be cooled with a reservoir...

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

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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