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Attaining the liquid helium temperature with a compact pulse tube cryocooler for space applications

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Abstract

Recent breakthroughs in space science have motivated space exploration programs in many countries including China. Cryocoolers, which provide the mandatory low-temperature environment for many sensitive yet delicate space detectors, are crucial for the proper functioning of various systems. One benchmark for the cryocooler performance is attaining the liquid helium temperature. However, even with complex configurations and multiple driving sources, only a few cryocoolers to date can achieve this goal. Here we report a high-frequency pulse tube cryocooler (HPTC) driven by a single non-oil-lubrication compressor which is capable of reaching the liquid helium temperature while offering other advantages such as high compactness, excellent reliability and high efficiency. The HPTC obtains a no-load temperature of 4.4 K, which is the first realization of cooling below the 4He critical point with a gas-coupled two-stage arrangement. The prototype can provide a cooling power of 87 mW at 8 K, and 5.2 mW at 5 K with a 425 W input electric power, showing leading-level efficiency. Moreover, we demonstrate the ability of the cryocooler to simultaneously provide cooling power at different temperature levels to meet different requirements. Therefore, the prototype developed here could be a promising cryocooler for space applications and beyond.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    XuMing Liu, LiuBiao Chen, XianLin Wu, Biao Yang, Jue Wang, WenXiu Zhu, JunJie Wang & Yuan Zhou

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    XuMing Liu, XianLin Wu, Biao Yang, Jue Wang, JunJie Wang & Yuan Zhou

Authors
  1. XuMing Liu
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  2. LiuBiao Chen
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  3. XianLin Wu
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  4. Biao Yang
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  5. Jue Wang
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  6. WenXiu Zhu
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  7. JunJie Wang
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  8. Yuan Zhou
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to LiuBiao Chen or Yuan Zhou.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018Y FB0504603), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51706233, 51427806 and U1831203), the Strategic Pilot Projects in Space Science of China (Grant No. XDA15010400), the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. QYZDY-SSW-JSC028), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2019030). Special thanks to Dr. Jianbo Tang from UNSW Sydney for valuable discussion and helpful revisions of the paper.

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Liu, X., Chen, L., Wu, X. et al. Attaining the liquid helium temperature with a compact pulse tube cryocooler for space applications. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 63, 434–439 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-019-1471-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-019-1471-7

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