Cold Facts Digital – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

NASA’s Webb Pathfinder telescope successfully completes second super-cold optical test

Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope's "pathfinder telescope," or "Pathfinder," completed its second super-cold optical test. This marked the first check of specialized optical test equipment designed to illuminate the telescope's optics through to the instrument focal plains, as well as the procedures used to operate this test equipment.

LHC collides ions at new record energy

After the successful restart of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its first months of data taking with proton collisions at a new energy frontier, the LHC is moving to a new phase, with the first lead-ion collisions of Run 2 at an energy about twice as high as...

11 articles added to the Cryogenic Treatment Database

The Cryogenic Treatment Database, CSA's resource for research and information in the field of cryogenic treatment, has been updated. We encourage you to visit the database and share this information with researchers and others in the field.

Authorities call for regulation of cryotherapy

Investigation into the recent death of Chelsea Ake-Salvacion in a liquid nitrogen cryotherapy chamber at RejuvenIce in Henderson NV points to oxygen deprivation as the cause of death. In the wake of this tragic accident, authorities are calling for steps to regulate the use of cryotherapy, which has recently been...

LCLS researchers discover new dimension to high temperature superconductivity

A team led by scientists at the US Dept. of Energy (DOE)’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory observed a new type of "charge density wave" after combining powerful magnetic pulses with some of the brightest X-rays on the planet. The resulting 3-D effect appears closely linked to high temperature superconductivity, though...

Obituary: Former BCC Chairman Harry Jones

Professor Harry (Henry) Jones died on August 24, 2015, at 70 years of age. He was a professor of condensed matter physics at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University, where he worked for 44 years until his retirement in 2012. Jones also led the High Magnetic Fields and Superconductivity Group, the...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Helium-3

Helium-3 (3He) is one of the two stable isotopes of helium. The other is the much more common Helium-4 (4He). Neither of these isotopes should be confused with He II, which is the second liquid phase of 4He. He II was discussed in this column in the Spring 2010 edition...

Cryopumping

Cryopumping refers to the use of cryogenic temperatures to produce vacuum in enclosed spaces. More broadly, it can also refer to the removal of gases via cryogenic temperatures from a flow stream or enclosure without necessarily resulting in vacuum pressures. This is an important application of cryogenics and is used...

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations (TAO) are a common event in cryogenic systems that can have significant adverse effects on the performance of the system. TAOs are sustained pressure oscillations that can occur in tubes containing gas, closed at one end (the warm end) that have a very large temperature gradient along...

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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