Aspen Aerogels, a leading technology company specializing in aerogel-based sustainability and electrification solutions, has announced the grand opening of its state-of-the-art engineering and rapid prototyping facility in Marlborough, MA. This 59,000-square-foot facility, known as the Advanced Thermal Barrier Center (ATBC), will serve as the engineering hub for PyroThin cell-to-cell barriers, which play a vital role in optimizing the safety and performance of battery packs for the rapidly growing eMobility and energy storage system (ESS) markets. 

How electrons pair in cuprate superconductors depends, in part, on the crystalline landscape the electrons occupy. That landscape can be altered by applying pressure, which in turn causes the critical temperature (T_c) in some cuprates to rise, fall, and rise again as the pressure grows. But are the changes in T_c due to the atoms being pressed into a new crystalline structure or just being squeezed closer together? Experimental evidence is contradictory. To resolve the question, Alexander Mark of the University of Illinois Chicago and his collaborators performed experiments on the three members of the BSCCO family of cuprates [1]. They showed that the pressure-induced shifts in T_c coincide with changes in how the materials compress, which in turn reflect changes in electronic structure.

On Tuesday, May 22, NASA’s NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, developed a “light leak,” in which unwanted sunlight enters the instrument. While analyzing incoming data since then, the team identified an impact to daytime observations. Nighttime observations seem to be unaffected. The team suspects that at least one of the thin thermal shields on NICER’s 56 X-ray Concentrators has been damaged, allowing sunlight to reach its sensitive detectors.

Semiconductors are foundational components of modern energy, communication, and myriad other technologies. Research on tailoring the underlying nanostructure of semiconductors for optimizing device performance has been ongoing for decades. Now, in a study recently published in Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Tsukuba and collaborating partner UNISOKU Co., LTD., have facilitated technology development—easy-to-use, time-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)—for measuring the movement of electrons in nanostructures at high temporal and spatial resolution, in a manner that will be invaluable for optimizing nanostructure performance.

Within superconductors there are little tornadoes of electrons known as quantum vortices that can occur, vortices that have important implications in superconducting applications such as quantum sensors. Now a new kind of superconducting vortex has been found, according to an international team of researchers.^[1]

Among the most fundamental questions in astronomy: how did the first stars and galaxies form? NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is already providing new insights into this question. One of the largest programs in Webb’s first year of science is the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, which will devote about 32 days of telescope time to uncover and characterize faint, distant galaxies. While the data is still coming in, JADES already has discovered hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old. The team also has identified galaxies sparkling with a multitude of young, hot stars.

Ziath, an Azenta Life Sciences company, announced a revolution in cryogenic sample management – the Ri-Track Mirage 2D barcoded tube whole rack reader. Traditionally, identifying the identity of frost-covered racks of 2D barcoded tubes taken from low temperature storage has been a time-consuming and error-prone process. Drawing upon proprietary Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging technology – the Ri-Track Mirage can reliably read 2D barcoded racks covered in ice and with racks taken directly from vapor-phase liquid nitrogen storage. The need to warm your rack to thaw it out, which may degrade thermally sensitive samples, to read your identity of your sample rack is eliminated.

Precision measurements reveal connection between electron density and atomic arrangements in charge-ordered states of a superconducting copper-oxide material. Researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a direct connection between the disappearance of certain atomic vibrations and the emergence of a “charge density wave” in superconducting copper-oxide materials. This discovery, achieved through precision measurement, uncovers a vital relationship between atomic structure and charge distribution, advancing our understanding of superconductivity.

The stable isotopes hydrogen and oxygen (δ2H and δ18O, respectively) in soil water are widely used in ecological studies, which rely on the accurate extraction of unfractionated water from different soil types. Cryogenic vacuum distillation (CVD) is the laboratory-based technique most widely used in eco-hydrological studies. However, the reliability of this technique in reflecting soil water δ2H and δ18O is still of concern.

The pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions continues as does the search for ‘greener energy solutions’ and one of the consequences of this is significant growth in the use of Liquid Natural Gas for marine applications. LNG has long been regarded as a sustainable fuel and has gained significant traction as a viable alternative for a wide range of commercial transport applications, including marine and shipping. It is estimated that 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide is generated by maritime traffic, which is why the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is increasingly looking to reduce CO2 emissions. While LNG is a much ‘greener’ fuel than the highly viscous diesel fuels typically used to power container ships and cruise liners, it does present significant challenges to fuel systems and pumps, specifically dealing with extreme (cryogenic) temperatures.

Researchers from Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a new approach for identifying isomeric and isobaric metabolites using high-resolution ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) and cryogenic infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The complex structure of metabolites has made their identification challenging, and analytical standards are often required to confirm their presence in a sample. However, the new approach can separate isomeric metabolites in a matter of milliseconds and provide highly structured IR fingerprints for their unambiguous identification. Additionally, this approach allows for the automatic identification of metabolite isomers by comparing their IR fingerprints with those in a database, thereby eliminating the need for analytical standards.

Chart Industries, Inc. and Crane Company have successfully tested a new cryogenic valve designed and built by Crane for liquid hydrogen applications. This is the first valve launched from Crane’s CRYOFLO™ line of bellow seal vacuum jacketed globe valves, designed and tested by Crane, with final validation, review, and testing conducted by Chart. Final testing was conducted at Chart’s one-of-a-kind liquid hydrogen test facility in New Prague, MN, USA, leveraging Chart’s 60 years of experience with hydrogen equipment and the facility’s availability of the extremely cold cryogenic liquid for testing. Liquid hydrogen is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit colder than liquid nitrogen, and significantly colder than the temperature limit of most cryogenic valves.

The Innovate UK-funded CryoCMOS Consortium, led by SureCore Ltd, reports that it has successfully created new, PDK-quality, transistor models characterized for both 4 K and 77 K cryogenic operation. SureCore is using these to develop key foundation IP to enable the design of cryo-control ASICs for use in the quantum computing space. Key to supporting this activity were the accurate cryogenic measurements undertaken by Incize of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

Helium is a gas with properties that make it useful for many different purposes, from cooling to providing lift in airships. By understanding the basics of its cryogenic principles, we can understand how this gas works and its various uses. The aspects of cryogenic science emerged in early 19th-century experiments by Faraday and Joule. Cryogenics involves subjecting materials to extremely low temperatures, usually below -150° C.

Quantum Sensing: Necessity for low temperature and low vibrations-Most quantum states are only visible and controllable when the thermal energy KBT is comparable or smaller than the energy difference ΔE between the quantum states. Therefore, to see the quantum properties of materials or devices, they often need to be cooled to and maintained at millikelvin temperatures. In the last ten years, we have seen great progress in improving the accessibility to millikelvin environments via advanced cryogenic platforms offered by industry. On the basis of these platforms, the application can be developed that would allow probing quantum states of materials or devices, for example by means of Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) techniques. However, for low temperature SPM techniques, besides the low temperature, low vibrations are also essential. First, the interaction distance between probe and quantum state needs to be maintained and second, in case of force-sensors like M(R)FM, the sensor needs to be decoupled from force-noise due to accelerations. It is to this end that quantum sensing will require progression towards low temperature and low vibration environments to use quantum-enhanced probe sensors for opening a new paradigm of Scanning Probe Microscopy: qSPM. 

A new JPL- and Caltech-developed detector could transform how quantum computers located thousands of miles apart exchange huge quantities of quantum data. Quantum computers hold the promise of operating millions of times faster than conventional computers. But to communicate over long distances, quantum computers will need a dedicated quantum communications network.

Energy Sector and Metallic Materials
Simultaneously improving known materials and exploring new alternative material options for applications in demanding environments for the energy sector (offshore wind power, solar power, biomass power, fission and fusion, geothermal power, hydroelectric power) is one of the leading engineering research endeavors today[1]. A unique combination of high corrosion resistance, toughness, strength, machinability, and wear resistance is required for materials used in energy applications.[2] Metallic materials used in the energy sector can be classified into ferrous and non-ferrous alloys. The most commonly used ferrous alloys in the energy sector are various grades of stainless steels, structural steels, duplex steels, low alloy and high alloy steels[1-5]. When selecting non-ferrous alloys, it is important to consider the application and its environment. Generally, the commonly used non-ferrous alloys are copper alloys, titanium alloys, aluminum alloys and nickel alloys[1-5].

The Second Target Station (STS) is the future of forefront neutron scattering science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which started with the first neutron scattering measurements in the 1940s at the X-10 Graphite Reactor and continues today at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). STS will be a 700 kW, 15 Hz pulsed-spallation neutron source designed to provide the world’s highest peak of brightness cold neutron beams, meeting the demand for neutron scattering resources for physical, chemical, biological, geological, materials and human health sciences. The STS will utilize one out of every four proton pulses from the SNS accelerator, delivering the 1µs pulses to a rotating water-cooled tungsten target and producing neutrons by the spallation process. To convert high energy spallation neutrons to high brightness cold neutron beams, two compact liquid hydrogen moderators are located adjacent to the target’s peak neutron production zone and surrounded by light water premoderators and beryllium reflectors to increase neutron flux. 

Hydrogen has been touted as the fuel of the future, but challenges remain in improving the storage efficiency of liquefied hydrogen fuel for large scale commercial transport and storage. Researchers from South Korea have conducted experiments and simulations to investigate the heat flows and phase changes within a cryogenic fuel tank using multiphase thermal flow simulations, with the goal of designing safe and efficient cryotanks.