The absolute coldest a substance can ever achieve then is when all molecular motion is stopped. This occurs at -459.67 °F / -273.15 °C, also known as absolute zero, or 0 degrees on the Kelvin scale. It was this limit that scientists at the University of Bremen, Germany, approached when they took a cloud of about 100,000 rubidium atoms trapped in a magnetic field and cooled them to around 2 billionths of a degree Celsius in a vacuum chamber, creating something known as a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Antimatter is the stuff of science fiction. In the book and film Angels and Demons, Professor Langdon tries to save Vatican City from an antimatter bomb. Star Trek’s starship Enterprise uses matter-antimatter annihilation propulsion for faster-than-light travel. But antimatter is also the stuff of reality. Antimatter particles are almost identical to their matter counterparts except that they carry the opposite charge and spin. When antimatter meets matter, they immediately annihilate into energy.

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the US is set to replicate that marvel of model-making, the ship-in-a-bottle, on an impressive scale. More than 3000 tonnes of steel and other components for DUNE’s four giant detector modules, or cryostats, must be lowered 1.5 km through narrow shafts beneath the Sanford Lab in South Dakota, before being assembled into four 66 × 19 × 18 m3 containers.

FLSmidth has signed an agreement with Chart Industries, Inc. to implement advanced carbon capture technology to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from cement production. Cement production represents 7-8% of global CO2 emissions – carbon capture technologies are essential to reduce that number and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.

The goal of any sealing option for a vacuum chamber, whether aluminum or another material, is to provide a leak free (or acceptable leak rate) transition from the interior vacuum of the chamber to the exterior environment. For all types of vacuum chambers these options fall into two broad categories: permanent joints and demountable joints.

I was ready to write about the awesome green beauty of a 454.6 nm argon laser and what it does to the hydrogen molecule when a friend sent me an article from the New York Times by Hiroko Tabuchi, “For many hydrogen is the fuel of the future. New research raises doubts.” The article is “based” on a recent journal publication, “How green is blue hydrogen?” by Robert Howarth and Mark Jacobson, who are researchers at Cornell and Stanford Universities, respectively.

We regret to report the passing of former Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) leader, visiting associate at Caltech, CSA Fellow and Cold Facts Space Cryogenics columnist, Peter V. Mason. He passed after a short illness on May 30, 2021.

During past years, advances in both lithography and millikelvin cryogenics have supported and enabled vast improvement in the sophistication of experimental research on electrical circuits that display uniquely quantum mechanical behavior. It comes as no surprise that dilution refrigerator measurement systems have moved beyond basic physics research contraptions and into central focus in the new era of quantum engineering.

Introducing a new Cold Facts feature: Meet the Author. In this inaugural issue, we introduce Guy Gistau Baguer and his new work, “Cryogenic Helium Refrigeration for Middle and Large Powers”: A Book on Helium Refrigeration. Learn more about Guy and his work here!

While the pandemic may have changed the approach, organizers and attendees of the 2021 Cryogenic Engineering Conference–International Cryogenic Materials Conference participated in a valuable week of presentations, discussions, posters, short courses and exhibitions. Held virtually via Whova® from July 17–23, CEC-ICMC hosted over 670 attendees from across the globe in a unique opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and friends while sharing information, news and ideas: a welcome change after a long period of uncertainty.

The DARWIN and LUX-ZEPLIN collaborations have now joined forces to work together on the design, construction and operation of a new, single, multi-tonne scale xenon observatory to explore dark matter. The announcement was made July 20. The detector will be highly sensitive to a wide range of proposed dark matter particles and their interactions with visible matter.

A minimally invasive cryoablation system offers a novel approach for the treatment of non muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The Vessi Medical minimally invasive cryotherapy solution is designed to provide a bladder-specific system that reduces the cost and eliminates complications associated with the current first-line treatment, transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT).

Atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) can exist in a mysterious “supersolid” state in two dimensions, researchers in Austria have shown. The work, which builds on research from 2019 demonstrating supersolidity in one dimension, opens the way to hitherto impossible tests of theoretical predictions about this long-unexplained phenomenon.

Research led by Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3P. This discovery may be of huge importance to the future operations of quantum computers.

Cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero, a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID, can do something amazing: detect a magnetic field only a millionth as strong as the human brain’s, or less than 5 quintillionths of a tesla.

The ATLAS Collaboration has released new measurements of the Higgs-boson decay probability to tau leptons in its four major production modes: gluon fusion (ggF), vector-boson fusion (VBF), the associated production with a W or Z boson (WH, ZH), and the associated production with a top-quark pair (ttH).

On August 10, an Antares rocket launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island VA. Atop the rocket was a Northrop-Grumman Cygnus spacecraft carrying 3,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts aboard ISS, as well as the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE) and three other science experiments. Cygnus docked with ISS on August 12 where the FBCE will soon advance the science of heat transfer in microgravity.

On August 10, Plug Power Inc., a leading provider of turnkey hydrogen solutions for the global green hydrogen economy, broke ground on the site of a green hydrogen production plant in Camden County GA, where 15 tons of green liquid hydrogen will be produced per day.

Helion Energy (Helion), a clean energy company committed to creating a new era of zero-carbon electricity through fusion, broke ground on the next iteration of its fusion facility in Everett WA on July 27. The new facility will accelerate Helion’s efforts to build the world’s first commercially viable fusion power plant known as Polaris.

The joint NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has passed its critical final mission analysis review — clearing the way for a late 2021 launch from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket.