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Qubit Measurement Systems Right Out of the Box?

Necessity of mK-Cryogenics-During the past years, advances in both lithography and millikelvin cryogenics have supported and enabled vast improvement in the sophistication of experimental research on electrical circuits that display uniquely quantum mechanical behavior. It comes as no surprise that dilution refrigerator measurement systems have moved beyond basic physics research...

New Green Storage System Offers Renewable Energy On-Demand

Back to the Future movie fans may remember the term “flux capacitor” as a fictional device that allows for time travel. That device still doesn’t exist, but a University of Central Florida storage technology does use a different type of flux capacitor developed by NASA. While trying to find a way...

Commonwealth Fusion Systems Opens Fusion Energy Campus on the Fastest Path to Bring Clean Fusion Energy to the World

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) officially opened its new campus to support the development and deployment of commercial fusion energy. The ceremonial event included visits from U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator Edward Markey, U.S. Representative Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, along...

Oxygen Diffuser Project Underway in Kentucky

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District is executing a sustainability project funded by the Section 212 Program to install an upstream diffuser system at Wolf Creek on the Cumberland River in Jamestown, Kentucky. The district is partnering with power preference customers, the Southeastern Power Administration, and Tennessee Valley...

Honeywell’s Fuel Cell Powertrain Project Comes Alive

Honeywell Aerospace is confident that an EU-funded consortium it is leading can deliver a “commercially viable” high-power fuel cell powertrain for regional aircraft applications. Ground tests of the entire 1MW propulsion system – including an electric motor – will be performed in 2026 under the Clean Aviation-backed Newborn project. Although the...

The Moon is Too Hot and Too Cold; Now It Could Be Just Right

With temperatures on the moon ranging from -410° to a scorching 250° F, it’s an understatement to say that humans will need habitats with heat and air conditioning to survive there long term. But heating and cooling systems won’t be effective enough to support habitats for lunar exploration or even...

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

Seeking recommendations for commercial sensors

I would like to measure vibrations in small LHe cryostats. Could anybody recommend commercial sensors which would be suitable for the purpose? I am interested in the frequency range between 1Hz and a couple of KHz, with particular attention to the low frequency side.

Estimating cost of carbon steel, pure helium storage tanks

In order to perform an indicative cost assessment of our helium cryogenic plant (still in the design phase), I need an estimation of the cost of carbon steel room temperature pure helium storage tanks. The storage pressure is 20 bar. Can anyone give me suggestions about how to estimate the...

Supplier of pressure sensor that works down to 4.2 K

In an actual experiment we would like to measure the static pressure in a cryostat in the range between one and four bar. Therefore we are looking for some (more or less) cheap pressure sensors that work in liquid helium in the pressure range up to five bar. Unfortunately all...

Looking for reference/textbook suggestions

Can you suggest some reference textbooks for practical thermodynamics applications in cryogenic fields? I need textbooks with cryogenics calculations and examples, dimensioning procedures, second principle applications in cryogenics, heat load calculations, cryogenic pump application, etc. Do such books exist? Does any similar source of information exist?

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