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Canadian-built Laser Chills Antimatter to Near Absolute Zero for First Time

On March 30, the CERN-based ALPHA (Anti-hydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) collaboration, including team members from TRIUMF, announced the world’s first laser-based manipulation of antimatter, leveraging a made-in-Canada laser system to cool a sample of antimatter down to near absolute zero significantly altering the  landscape of antimatter research and advance the next...

Montana Instruments Introduces CryoCore™ for High-Throughput Electrical and Optical Materials Characterization

This April, Montana Instruments Corporation, a manufacturer of high precision, fully automated closed-cycle optical cryostats, introduced CryoCore™, a new streamlined cryogenic platform built for high-throughput electrical and optical materials characterization. Using advancements in thermal and low vibration design, the cryostat is a low vibration, cryogen-free system that allows users to...

New Combination of Materials Provides Progress Toward Quantum Computing

In research published June 14 in Nature Communications, engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrated how, when semiconductor materials known as the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) materials they make are stacked in a particular geometry, the interaction that occurs between particles gives researchers more control over the devices’ properties. Specifically, the...

Refrigeration Breakthrough Takes Chinese Quantum Science Near Absolute Zero

China has achieved a breakthrough in self-developed refrigeration equipment – a high-end scientific device that can provide an environment of near absolute zero without using liquid helium. The device lasts longer and is more convenient to use and maintain, compared with traditional cooling machines that use cryogens. The device was...

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Mixed Refrigerant Cycles

Most cryogenic refrigeration systems, both large scale systems and cryocoolers, use helium as a working fluid. There are a number of advantages to helium, not the least of which is that helium remains a fluid down to the lowest achievable temperatures. In order to freeze helium, pressures of over 20...

Fountain Pumps and He II Phase Separators

Helium II (He II), the second liquid phase of the 4He isotope described in this column in Cold Facts Spring 2010 (http://2csa.us/he2), can be modeled as consisting of two interpenetrating fluids. One, the superfluid component, has zero viscosity and entropy and the other, the normal fluid component, has nonzero viscosity...

Turboexpanders

A vital technology in the refrigerators and liquefiers described in Cold Facts Volume 31 Number 3 is that of turboexpanders. These devices are rotating machines in which the process fluid (e.g., helium) does work against the turboexpander while moving from high pressure to a lower pressure and thus is cooled....

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...

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...