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Sandwiched Graphene Adopts Andreev States

MIT physicists have found that a flake of graphene, when sandwiched between two superconducting materials, can inherit some of those materials’ superconducting qualities. The electronic state of the graphene changes dramatically here, even at its center, as the particles pair up in Andreev states—a fundamental electronic configuration that allows a...

Auguste and Taylor-Wharton Ink New Distribution Deal

Auguste Cryogenics has signed a long-term liquid cylinder distribution agreement with Taylor-Wharton, becoming the exclusive distributor in Europe, Russia and Israel for Taylor-Wharton’s extensive line of gas and liquid withdrawal cylinders.

Researchers Develop Circuit Refrigerator for Quantum Computers

Cooling has proven to be a major concern for engineers developing quantum computers, but now a research team at Finland's Aalto University says it has invented a quantum circuit refrigerator that could reduce errors in quantum computing. Quantum computers differ from the computers that we use in that, instead of...

Ball Aerospace Developing Cryostat for GUSTO

NASA has chosen Ball Aerospace to design and build a cryostat for its Galactic/Extragalactic Ultralong Duration Balloon (ULDB) Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory mission, or GUSTO. The mission, led by the University of Arizona, will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, helping scientists to determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in...

Nikkiso Acquires Cryogenic Industries

Nikkiso Co., Ltd. has announced its acquisition of Cryogenic Industries (CSA CSM), a group of product and service companies supporting both liquefaction and separation plants for air gases and small-scale plants for LNG liquefaction. The deal is worth an estimated $440 million and is expected to close in August.

CERN Celebrates Linac 4 Completion

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) celebrated the completion of its Linac 4 during a ceremony on May 9. The new accelerator is expected to allow the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to reach higher luminosity by 2021. The machine is almost 90 meters long, sits 12 meters below the...

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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