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EMIR Spectrograph Installed on Gran Telescopio CANARIAS

Engineers at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory have attached the EMIR spectrograph to the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC), realizing a more than decade long design and fabrication process. The cryogenic instrument was designed, built, assembled and verified entirely at the IAC (Astrophysics Institute of Canrias). It will produce images...

FAST Research Accelerator Reaches Design Beam Energy

In May, Fermilab sent an electron beam with an energy of 50 million electronvolts, or MeV, through the photoinjector at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology facility (FAST), achieving a major design goal for the accelerator and marking the beginning of a new accelerator science program at the laboratory.

New Elements Named, Public Comment Sought

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has opened a five-month long public comment and review period of the names recommended for elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, the discoveries of which were announced late last year.

Scientists Use Frozen Argon to Boost Laser Light to New Extremes

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University and Louisiana State University have achieved a dramatic high harmonic generation (HHG) shift by shining an infrared laser through argon gas that’s been frozen at 20 K into a thin, fragile solid whose atoms barely cling to each...

New Low-Defect Method to Nitrogen Dope Graphene Results in Tunable Bandstructure

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Electronics Science and Technology and Materials Science and Technology Divisions has demonstrated hyperthermal ion implantation (HyTII) as an effective means of substitutionally doping graphene—a hexagonally-arranged single-atomic thickness carbon sheet—with nitrogen atoms. The result is a low-defect film with...

SLAC Testing Prototype Dark Matter Detector

Prototyping of a new, ultrasensitive “eye” for dark matter is making rapid progress at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, according to researchers and engineers who have installed a small-scale version of the future LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector to test, develop and troubleshoot various aspects of its technology. When...

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Joule-Thomson Effect

The Joule-Thomson (JT) effect is a thermodynamic process that occurs when a fluid expands from high pressure to low pressure at constant enthalpy (an isenthalpic process). Such a process can be approximated in the real world by expanding a fluid from high pressure to low pressure across a valve. Under...

Current Leads

One of the challenges of using superconducting magnets is the connection of the magnet to a room temperature power supply. This is accomplished via current leads. The trick is that current leads should ideally have a low heat leak, since they connect room temperature to cryogenic temperature, while at the...

Multilayer Insulation

Multilayer insulation (also referred to as superinsulation) is a key component in the reduction of heat leak to cryogenic systems due to thermal radiation. MLI consists of a series of uncooled reflective surfaces placed in the vacuum space between two surfaces, one warmer than the other. Generally speaking, for ideal...

Wind Tunnels

Dr. Robert Kilgore The development of the cryogenic wind tunnel is one of many significant breakthroughs in both cryogenics and wind-tunnel technology made during the past millennium. Interest in the development of high-speed commercial and military aircraft resulted in a review of problems of flow simulation in transonic wind tunnels...

History of Cryogenics

From the Fall 1999 issue of Cold Facts magazine Millennium Breakthroughs A variety of CSA members give different perspectives on the past millennium: What were the most significant breakthroughs in cryogenics during the past millennium? Prof. R.G. Scurlock, Kryos Technology, scurlock@soton.ac.uk (“Breakthrough” = way through obstacles — Oxford English Dictionary)...

Cryobiology

Andreas Sputtek Past President Society for Cryobiology sputtek@uke.uni-hamburg.de or http://www.sputtek.de/. The word cryobiology (from the Greek words “cryo” = cold, “bios” = life, and “logos” = science) literally signifies the science of life at low temperatures. In practice, this field comprises the study of any biological material or system (e.g.,...

Cryogenic Insulation

James E. Fesmire Cryogenics Test Laboratory NASA Kennedy Space Center james.e.fesmire@nasa.gov Introduction In today’s world, the use of cryogenics and low-temperature refrigeration is taking a more and more significant role. From the food industry, transportation, energy, and medical applications to the Space Shuttle, cryogenic liquids must be stored, handled, 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...