Quantum Design International, a CSA Corporate Sustaining Member and leader in cryogen-free measurement systems, has announced a free private tour of its world headquarters for ICC 19 conference attendees. Dr. Martin Kugler, Quantum Design’s Chief Operating Officer, will lead the tour of the facility after the last ICC afternoon session on Thursday, June 23.

Air Liquide has completed its acquisition of Airgas Inc., one of the leading suppliers of industrial gases and associated products and services in the US. Globally, the combined businesses is expected to generate more than $22 billion in annual sales, employ approximately 68,000 people and serve well over three million customers and patients.

Canada’s TRIUMF (CSA CSM) laboratory has opened a branch at Japan’s KEK, enhancing research collaborations between the two labs to explore a range of areas from the breadth and composition of the universe to the properties of advanced materials.

NASA has selected eight technology proposals for investment that have the potential to transform future aerospace missions, introduce new capabilities and significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems. This year’s portfolio addresses a range of leading-edge concepts, including a method to produce “solar white” coatings for scattering sunlight and cooling fuel tanks in space down to -300°F with no energy input needed.

IBM scientists have built a quantum computer system that users can access through the cloud on any desktop or mobile device to run algorithms and experiments. It's called the IBM Quantum Experience and it's powered by quantum processors with five superconducting qubits. Signals are sent in and out of a helium-3 cryogenic dilution refrigerator. It has several cold plates that all sit at different temperatures. The coldest, at 15 mK, is the location where the system processes quantum information. An additional pulse tube compressor, running a closed cycle of helium-4, helps get the system cold.

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) and Yale University has developed a method to trap and manipulate electrons, opening the door for using the particles as quantum bits. Electrons represent an ideal quantum bit, according to the team, with a "spin" that can represent a zero when pointing up and a one when pointed down. Such electron bits are small—even smaller than an atom—and can remain quantum for long periods because they do not strongly interact.

NASA has released 56 formerly patented agency technologies into the public domain, making its government developed technologies freely available for unrestricted commercial use. Additionally, a searchable database is also available that catalogs thousands of expired NASA patents already in the public domain.

Scientists at Brunel University London, in collaboration with Air Products PLC, have engineered a new method to build freezers using advanced cryogenically cooled heat pipe technology. The units, capable of reaching temperatures as low as -180 °C, are likely to be used for medical storage, cooling and storing samples ranging from blood plasma to eggs, sperm and other biological materials.

Fermilab broke ground on April 27 on the building that will house the future Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND). The particle detector is one of three that scientists will use to search for the sterile neutrino, a hypothesized particle that scientists say could not only increase understanding for neutrinos already known, but also provide clues about how the universe formed. It will take about eight months to complete the SBND building, and in the meantime members of the Fermilab Neutrino and Particle Physics divisions are refining the design of the detector itself with help from international collaborators.