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The Life of an Accelerator

Tens of thousands of accelerators exist around the world, producing powerful particle beams for the benefit of medical diagnostics, cancer therapy, industrial manufacturing, material analysis, national security and nuclear as well as fundamental particle physics. Particle beams can also be used to produce powerful beams of X-rays.

Nanoparticles Shown to Improve Hydrogen Storage

Sometimes you have to go small to win big. And that's just the approach an interdisciplinary and multi-lab research group took in using nanoparticles and a novel nanoconfinement system to develop a method to change hydrogen storage properties. The team's discovery could enable the creation of high-capacity hydrogen storage materials...

ITER’s Promise of Clean Energy

At a dusty construction site amid the limestone ridges of Provence, workers scurry around immense slabs of concrete arranged in a ring like a modern-day Stonehenge. It looks like the beginnings of a large commercial power plant, but it is not. The project, called ITER, is an enormous, and enormously...

Sumitomo Cryogenics of America Acquires Ferran Technology

Sumitomo (SHI) Cryogenics of America, Inc. (SCAI) (CSA CSM), has announced its acquisition of Ferran Technology Inc., a leading-edge provider of vacuum measurement and control instrumentation to the micro-electronics manufacturing industries, as well as scientific research and industrial vacuum markets.

Electro-optical Switch Transmits Data at Record-Low Temperatures

A silicon optical switch developed at Sandia National Laboratories is the first to transmit up to 10 gigabits per second of data at temperatures just a few degrees above absolute zero. The device, according to researchers there, could enable data transmission for next-generation superconducting computers that store and process data...

MRI Scans Help Spot HIV in the Brain

Scientists at University College London have developed a way to use MRI scans to help identify when HIV is persisting in the brain despite effective drug treatment. The team looked at data from 146 HIV patients who were investigated for cognitive problems between 2011 and 2015. There was evidence that...

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Transfer Lines

Transfer lines may in some real sense be thought of as the cryogenic fluid analogy of current leads. While current leads carry electrical power to where it’s required in a cryogenic system, transfer lines do the same with cryogenic fluids. Transfer lines range in complexity from very simple U-tubes containing...

Zero Boiloff

Zero Boil Off cryostats are those that contain liquid cryogens but are designed to eliminate or vastly reduce the boil off of  the liquid. These cryostats combine some of the advantages of Cryogen-Free systems (e.g. ease of use and long operational lifetime) with the advantages associated with a reservoir of liquid...

Cryomodule

Cryomodule is a term that is most commonly used to refer to cryostats that contain superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities. Such cavities are used to accelerate charged particle beams and are a major component of modern particle accelerators. Using the term cryomodule to refer to cryostats containing SRF cavities appears...

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...

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...