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

Cooldown of Cryomodule 2 marks major achievement in Fermilab SRF program

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Fermilab's Accelerator Division successfully cooled down Cryomodule 2, the first ILC-type cryomodule in which all component cavities were processed and tested in the United States, to a temperature of 2 kelvin.

MIT’s Marc Kastner nominated to head DOE Office of Science

The White House has announced that President Barack Obama intends to nominate MIT’s Marc Kastner to head the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which manages much of the nation’s basic research on energy.

Dr. Naoya Shibata wins the 2013 Sir Martin Wood Prize

Dr. Naoya Shibata was presented the 2013 Sir Martin Wood Prize at the 2013 "Millennium Science Forum," organized by Oxford Instruments and held at the British Embassy in Tokyo on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

UWY Professor achieves breakthrough in understanding superconductivity properties

TeYu Chien, an assistant professor in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the leading author of a recently published paper that settles a longtime debate about the relationship between superconductivity and magnetism.

Superconducting detector measures single photons

Ben Mazin, assistant professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara, has developed a superconducting detector array that measures the energy of individual photons.

NIST’s new compact atomic clock design uses cold atoms to boost precision

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a compact atomic clock design that relies on cold rubidium atoms instead of the usual hot atoms, a switch that promises improved precision and stability.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon Cryocoolers

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...

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

Looking for the thermal conductivity of the high density polyethylene (HDPE) between 1.9 and 10K

I am looking for the thermal conductivity of the high density polyethylene (HDPE) between 1.9 and 10K (or even up to higher temperatures). The best would be to have these data for the HDPE material which sold by the CERN shop, which has a density of 0.95 g/cm3. Pier Paolo...