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

MIT’s Ernest J. Moniz nominated Secretary of Energy

President Barack Obama has announced that he intends to nominate MIT’s Ernest J. Moniz to head the US Department of Energy (DOE). Moniz is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, as well as the director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the Laboratory for...

Businesses merge to create Oxford Instruments Omicron NanoScience

Oxford Instruments, which acquired Omicron NanoTechnology in 2011, has now merged its NanoScience business unit with Omicron Technology to create a new company: Oxford Instruments Omicron NanoScience.

NIST cryogenic radiometer simplifies measurements

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated a novel chip-scale instrument made of carbon nanotubes that may simplify absolute measurements of laser power, especially the light signals transmitted by optical fibers in telecommunications networks.

First three-year LHC running period reaches a conclusion

At 7:24 am on February 14, the shift crew in the CERN Control Center extracted the beams from the Large Hadron Collider, bringing the machine’s first three-year running period to a successful conclusion. The LHC’s first run has seen major advances in physics, including the discovery of a new particle...

Steven Chu steps down as US energy secretary

The Nobel laureate Steven Chu has announced he is to resign as US energy secretary. When Chu departs, he will have served in the post for four years – longer than any of the 14 previous heads of the Department of Energy (DOE). Chu now plans to return to "an...

Foam’s future seen in space and industry

Materials designed with specialized thermal properties have been integral components of NASA's space shuttles and other launch vehicles for many years. Now, two thermal insulation systems developed by scientists at the Cryogenics Test Laboratory (CTL), a CSA Corporate Sustaining Member, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida may have application...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Two-Phase Flows

Two-phase flows are those flows in which there is a mixture of two physical states (solid, liquid or vapor). In cryogenic applications, such flows are almost always a mixture of a cryogenic liquid along with its corresponding vapor. A mixture of liquid helium and helium vapor would be a typical...

Supercritical Fluids

A supercritical fluid is defined as a substance whose temperature and pressure exceed those of its critical point. Every pure substance has a critical point that is defined in thermodynamic space by a critical temperature and a corresponding critical pressure. For example, the critical point for helium has a critical...

Brayton Cycle

The Brayton cycle is one of the many thermodynamic cycles used to generate cooling at cryogenic temperatures. Strictly speaking, when referring to cooling we should call this the reverse Brayton cycle as the original Brayton cycle describes the process of power generation or propulsion via a gas turbine. In many...

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...

Latest in Ask the Experts

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...

Separated layers of ice over a pipe

I want to know that why there are different layers of ice over a pipe carrying a cryogenic fluid, each layer separated with clear marks / lines? What do these layers signify?

Using nitrogen as a cryogen

Is it possible to achieve -200˚C using nitrogen as a cryogen?

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