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

Dr. Barbara Frei-Spreiter Appointed New CEO of RUAG International Holding AG and Beyond Gravity

By Phillipp Bircher With the appointment of Dr. Barbara Frei-Spreiter, RUAG International concludes the multi-stage search process to succeed André Wall as CEO of RUAG International and its space business, Beyond Gravity. Dr. Barbara Frei-Spreiter is a proven Swiss executive with over 25 years of international leadership experience in global...

Solving a Mystery in Dark Matter Detectors Could Improve Quantum Computers

By Lauren Biron Although dark matter makes up most of the mass in our universe, it has never been directly observed. To hunt for lighter dark matter and other rare phenomena, researchers must solve a puzzle in their supersensitive detectors: an unexpected number of low-energy events, called the “low-energy excess”...

How Argonne’s Aurora Supercomputer Is Opening up New Horizons for Fusion Energy Research

By Christina Nunez If you could build a star on Earth and harness its abundant energy, you’d need to know exactly how to store the star and keep it stable. Fusion energy scientists have been working for decades to make the idea a reality. They now have a potent new tool at...

Hydrogen Aviation Advances With Airbus and RWTH Aachen’s GENtwoPRO Fuel Cell Project

By Erin Kilgore If you’ve been tracking the future of hydrogen aviation, you know it’s a path packed with big ideas and tricky engineering puzzles. Now, Airbus and RWTH Aachen University have kicked off an Airbus RWTH Aachen partnership laser-focused on a near-term, high-impact goal: using scalable fuel cell technology to power regional aircraft. Early in Airbus’s hydrogen journey,...

World’s Most Powerful Particle Collider Upgrade Enters Next Phase with Giant Cold Boxes

By Georgina Jedikovska CERN engineers have transported two gleaming cryogenic “cold boxes” deep into the tunnels of the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HiLumi LHC), as part of the ambitious upgrade to the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Lowered close to the ATLAS and CMS experiment detectors, the two giant pieces...

Dutch Project Quper Results in New Leiden Cryogenics Mini-fridge, Controlled by OrangeQS Juice Operating System

An inverted tabletop dilution refrigerator that can achieve millikelvin temperatures has long been the holy grail for fast-turnaround quantum technology development. It is especially useful for fast and affordable quantum chip testing. In 2023, Quantum Delta NL awarded funding to companies Leiden Cryogenics and Orange Quantum Systems for the Quper...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dilution Refrigerators

Dilution refrigerators are a common technique for reaching temperatures below 1K, particularly where continuous cooling at these temperatures is required. Helium exists in two stable isotopes: 4He and 3He. Naturally occurring 3He is extremely rare, constituting less than 1 part per million of helium gas. However, 3He can be manufactured,...

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards (ODH) are a significant safety issue in cryogenic facilities. ODH occurs when inert gases such as nitrogen, helium or argon displace room air and thus lower the percentage of oxygen in the space below that required for human life. OSHA defines an area as oxygen deficient if...

Kelvin Temperature Scale

The Kelvin temperature scale is the principal temperature scale used in cryogenics and science. The kelvin is also one of the seven base units in the Système International d’Unités (SI) and is the unit of thermodynamic temperature. Thermodynamic temperature is a fundamental physical quantity (like mass, length or electrical current)...

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

Refrigeration capacity at 4.5 K for higher temp cryo systems

I would like to know how to calculate the equivalent refrigeration capacity at 4.5 K of a cryogenic system operating at higher temperature.

Need help with calculating flow rate

I have to maintain a certain mass (some tons) at 100 K by circulating in it GHe (through apposite channels). How can I calculate the flow rate needed? I suppose that the delta T (T inlet and T outlet) and the heat load on the mass are necessary. Knowing the...

What do cryogenics companies do about liability insurance?

What do cryogenics companies do about liability insurance? Is there a special type for cryogenics?

License requirements for storage and transport of cryogenic materials

Are you aware of permitting or license requirements (other than local city or town) needed for the storage or transportation of cryogenic materials?

CATEGORIES