From The National Institute of Standards and Technology
4.23.24
Media Contact
Katie Palubicki
katie.palubicki@nist.gov
Technical Contact
Ryan Snodgrass
ryan.snodgrass@nist.gov
(303) 497-5116
_____________________________
-Scientists have dramatically reduced the time and energy required to chill materials to temperatures near absolute zero.
-Their prototype refrigerator could prove a boon for the burgeoning quantum industry, which widely uses ultracold materials.
-NIST is now working with an industrial partner to commercialize the refrigerator.
_____________________________
Illustration of a pulse tube refrigerator. Credit: S. Kelley/NIST
By modifying a refrigerator commonly used in both research and industry, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have drastically reduced the time and energy required to cool materials to within a few degrees above absolute zero. The scientists say that their prototype device, which they are now working to commercialize with an industrial partner, could annually save an estimated 27 million watts of power, $30 million in global electricity consumption and enough cooling water to fill 5,000 Olympic swimming pools.
From stabilizing qubits (the basic unit of information in a quantum computer) to maintaining the superconducting properties of materials and keeping NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope cool enough to observe the heavens, ultracold refrigeration is essential to the operation of many devices and sensors. For decades, the pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) has been the workhorse device for achieving temperatures as cold as the vacuum of outer space.
These refrigerators cyclically compress (heat) and expand (cool) high pressure helium gas to achieve the “Big Chill,” broadly analogous to the way a household refrigerator uses the transformation of freon from liquid to vapor to remove heat. For more than 40 years, the PTR has proven its reliability, but it is also power-hungry, consuming more electricity than any other component of an ultralow temperature experiment.
Animations show a simplified version of a pulse tube refrigerator (PTR), commonly used to cool materials to a few degrees above absolute zero by compressing and expanding helium gas held under high pressure. NIST researchers optimized the efficiency of the PTR, dramatically reducing the amount of time and energy required to reach ultracold temperatures, by continuously adjusting the valve connecting the pulse tube to a reservoir of helium gas. Credit: S. Kelley/NIST
When NIST researcher Ryan Snodgrass and his colleagues took a closer look at the refrigerator, they found that manufacturers had built the device to be energy efficient only at its final operating temperature of 4 kelvin (K), or 4 degrees above absolute zero. The team found that these refrigerators are extremely inefficient at higher temperatures — a big issue because the cooldown process begins at room temperature.
During a series of experiments, Snodgrass, along with NIST scientists Joel Ullom, Vincent Kotsubo and Scott Backhaus, discovered that at room temperature, the helium gas was under such high pressure that some of it was shunted through a relief valve instead of being used for cooling. By changing the mechanical connections between the compressor and the refrigerator, the team ensured that none of the helium would be wasted, greatly improving the efficiency of the refrigerator.
In particular, the researchers continually adjusted a series of valves that control the amount of helium gas flowing from the compressor to the refrigerator. The scientists found that if they allowed the valves to have a larger opening at room temperature and then gradually closed them as cooling proceeded, they could reduce the cooldown time to between one half and one quarter of what it is now. Currently, scientists must wait a day or more for new quantum circuits to be cold enough to test. Since the progress of scientific research can be limited by the time it takes to reach cryogenic temperatures, the faster cooldown provided by this technology could broadly impact many fields, including quantum computing and other areas of quantum research. The technology developed by the NIST team could also allow scientists to replace large pulse tube refrigerators with much smaller ones, which require less supporting infrastructure, Snodgrass said.
The need for these refrigerators will greatly expand as research on quantum computing, along with its reliance on cryogenic technology, continues to grow. The modified PTR would then save a much greater amount of money, electrical energy and cooling water. In addition to supporting a burgeoning quantum economy, the device would also expedite research because scientists would no longer have to wait days or weeks for qubits and other quantum components to cool.
The researchers, who include scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, describe their method in an article posted online April 23 in Nature Communications.
See the science paper for instructive material with images.
See the full article here.
Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct.
five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology‘s Mission, Vision, Core Competencies, and Core Values
Mission
To promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.
NIST’s vision
NIST will be the world’s leader in creating critical measurement solutions and promoting equitable standards. Our efforts stimulate innovation, foster industrial competitiveness, and improve the quality of life.
NIST’s core competencies
Measurement science
Rigorous traceability
Development and use of standards
NIST’s core values
NIST is an organization with strong values, reflected both in our history and our current work. NIST leadership and staff will uphold these values to ensure a high performing environment that is safe and respectful of all.
Perseverance: We take the long view, planning the future with scientific knowledge and imagination to ensure continued impact and relevance for our stakeholders.
Integrity: We are ethical, honest, independent, and provide an objective perspective.
Inclusivity: We work collaboratively to harness the diversity of people and ideas, both inside and outside of NIST, to attain the best solutions to multidisciplinary challenges.
Excellence: We apply rigor and critical thinking to achieve world-class results and continuous improvement in everything we do.
Background
The Articles of Confederation, ratified by the colonies in 1781, contained the clause, “The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective states—fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States”. Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution of the United States (1789), transferred this power to Congress; “The Congress shall have power…To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures”.
In January 1790, President George Washington, in his first annual message to Congress stated that, “Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to”, and ordered Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to prepare a plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States, afterwards referred to as the Jefferson report. On October 25, 1791, Washington appealed a third time to Congress, “A uniformity of the weights and measures of the country is among the important objects submitted to you by the Constitution and if it can be derived from a standard at once invariable and universal, must be no less honorable to the public council than conducive to the public convenience”, but it was not until 1838, that a uniform set of standards was worked out. In 1821, John Quincy Adams had declared “Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessities of life to every individual of human society”.
From 1830 until 1901, the role of overseeing weights and measures was carried out by the Office of Standard Weights and Measures, which was part of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in the Department of the Treasury.
Bureau of Standards
In 1901 in response to a bill proposed by Congressman James H. Southard (R- Ohio) the National Bureau of Standards was founded with the mandate to provide standard weights and measures and to serve as the national physical laboratory for the United States. (Southard had previously sponsored a bill for metric conversion of the United States.)
President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Samuel W. Stratton as the first director. The budget for the first year of operation was $40,000. The Bureau took custody of the copies of the kilogram and meter bars that were the standards for US measures, and set up a program to provide metrology services for United States scientific and commercial users. A laboratory site was constructed in Washington DC (US) and instruments were acquired from the national physical laboratories of Europe. In addition to weights and measures the Bureau developed instruments for electrical units and for measurement of light. In 1905 a meeting was called that would be the first National Conference on Weights and Measures.
Initially conceived as purely a metrology agency the Bureau of Standards was directed by Herbert Hoover to set up divisions to develop commercial standards for materials and products. Some of these standards were for products intended for government use; but product standards also affected private-sector consumption. Quality standards were developed for products including some types of clothing; automobile brake systems and headlamps; antifreeze; and electrical safety. During World War I, the Bureau worked on multiple problems related to war production even operating its own facility to produce optical glass when European supplies were cut off. Between the wars Harry Diamond of the Bureau developed a blind approach radio aircraft landing system. During World War II military research and development was carried out including development of radio propagation forecast methods; the proximity fuze and the standardized airframe used originally for Project Pigeon; and shortly afterwards the autonomously radar-guided Bat anti-ship guided bomb and the Kingfisher family of torpedo-carrying missiles.
In 1948, financed by the United States Air Force the Bureau began design and construction of SEAC: the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer. The computer went into operation in May 1950 using a combination of vacuum tubes and solid-state diode logic. About the same time the Standards Western Automatic Computer, was built at the Los Angeles office of the NBS by Harry Huskey and used for research there. A mobile version- DYSEAC- was built for the Signal Corps in 1954.
Due to a changing mission, the “National Bureau of Standards” became the “ The National Institute of Standards and Technology” in 1988.
Following September 11, 2001, NIST conducted the official investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
Organization
NIST is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and operates a facility in Boulder, Colorado, which was dedicated by President Eisenhower in 1954. NIST’s activities are organized into laboratory programs and extramural programs. Effective October 1, 2010, NIST was realigned by reducing the number of NIST laboratory units from ten to six. NIST Laboratories include:
Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL)
Engineering Laboratory (EL)
Information Technology Laboratory (ITL)
Center for Neutron Research (NCNR)
Material Measurement Laboratory (MML)
Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML)
Extramural programs include:
Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a nationwide network of centers to assist small and mid-sized manufacturers to create and retain jobs, improve efficiencies, and minimize waste through process improvements and to increase market penetration with innovation and growth strategies;
Technology Innovation Program (TIP), a grant program where NIST and industry partners cost share the early-stage development of innovative but high-risk technologies;
Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which administers the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest award for performance and business excellence.
NIST’s Boulder laboratories are best known for NIST‑F1 which houses an atomic clock.
NIST‑F1 serves as the source of the nation’s official time. From its measurement of the natural resonance frequency of cesium—which defines the second—NIST broadcasts time signals via longwave radio station WWVB near Fort Collins in Colorado, and shortwave radio stations WWV and WWVH, located near Fort Collins and Kekaha in Hawai’i, respectively.
NIST also operates a neutron science user facility: the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR).
The NCNR provides scientists access to a variety of neutron scattering instruments which they use in many research fields (materials science; fuel cells; biotechnology etc.).
The SURF III Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility is a source of synchrotron radiation in continuous operation since 1961.
SURF III now serves as the US national standard for source-based radiometry throughout the generalized optical spectrum. All NASA-borne extreme-ultraviolet observation instruments have been calibrated at SURF since the 1970s, and SURF is used for measurement and characterization of systems for extreme ultraviolet lithography.
The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology performs research in nanotechnology, both through internal research efforts and by running a user-accessible cleanroom nanomanufacturing facility.
This “NanoFab” is equipped with tools for lithographic patterning and imaging (e.g., electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes).
Committees
NIST has seven standing committees:
Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC)
Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction (ACEHR)
National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee (NCST Advisory Committee)
Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB)
Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology (VCAT)
Board of Overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA Board of Overseers)
Manufacturing Extension Partnership National Advisory Board (MEPNAB)
Measurements and standards
As part of its mission, NIST supplies industry, academia, government, and other users with over 1,300 Standard Reference Materials (SRMs). These artifacts are certified as having specific characteristics or component content, used as calibration standards for measuring equipment and procedures, quality control benchmarks for industrial processes, and experimental control samples.
Handbook 44
NIST publishes the Handbook 44 each year after the annual meeting of the National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM). Each edition is developed through cooperation of the Committee on Specifications and Tolerances of the NCWM and the Weights and Measures Division (WMD) of the NIST. The purpose of the book is a partial fulfillment of the statutory responsibility for “cooperation with the states in securing uniformity of weights and measures laws and methods of inspection”.
NIST has been publishing various forms of what is now the Handbook 44 since 1918 and began publication under the current name in 1949. The 2010 edition conforms to the concept of the primary use of the SI (metric) measurements recommended by the Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988.
sciencesprings 