Dilution refrigeration

✍ Scribed by K.W. Taconis

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 547 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0011-2275
• DOI: 10.1016/0011-2275(78)90204-7

✦ Synopsis

The history of dilution refrigeration is traced back to 1951 when H. London suggested the possibility of cooling by mixing He 3 and He 4. The first dilution and cascade refrigerators are described, followed by continuous refrigerators and L yden dilution referation. Finally the Kamerling Onnes Laboratory Pomeranchuk cooling device is described.

Dilution refrigeration K.W. Taconis

The history of dilution refrigeration, by mixing liquid He 3 and He 4, goes back as far as 1951 when H. London I remarked that He a , in a dilute mixture below the X point of helium, would behave like a quasi-ideal Fermi gas in a volume determined by the He 4 . Adding more superfluid and thus He 4 at zero entropy to the mixture -which can be done through a supedeak (permeable only for He 4) -increases the volume and cooling by isotropic expansion of the He 3 'gas'.