Cold Facts Digital – Page 63 – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

NMR Imaging Reveals How Flu Virus Spreads from Cell to Cell

After a flu virus infects a host cell and hijacks its inner workings to create copies of itself, these copies gather into viral buds that break free from the host cell to infect again. A new study from MIT now provides the clearest picture yet of how the buds are...

JWST Completes Final Cryogenic Testing

NASA engineers unsealed the vault-like, 40-foot diameter, 40-ton door of Chamber A at Johnson Space Center in Houston on November 18, signaling the end of nearly 100 days of cryogenic testing for the agency's James Webb Space Telescope.

Cryogenic Aspects of Future NASA Mars Exploration

Cryogenic fluids are the basis for many different in-space systems, and several recent publications from NASA examine potential roles for cryogenic fluids in human missions to the red planet. Propulsion, in-situ resource utilization and power storage and generation represent the main systems using cryogenics.

Design and Application of Cryogenic Valves

Cryogenic media enhance our daily lives in many ways, from flash-frozen food to aerospace, cryosurgery and even special effects. Durability, dependability and long life are expected in all such applications, so manufacturers of cryogenic instruments should use the best construction methods available to handle the demanding requirements of controlling cryogenic...

Scientists Go Cold to Image Growths that Trigger Battery Fires

Scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured the first atomic-level images of finger-like growths called dendrites that can pierce the barrier between battery compartments and trigger short circuits or fires. This is the first study to examine the inner lives of batteries...

2017 Nobel in Chemistry Honors Cryo-EM

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Drs. Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for their work advancing cryo-electron microscopy. The cryo-EM method both simplifies and improves the imaging of biomolecules, providing atomic, or high-resolution, structure determination for biomolecules in solution.

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

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...

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