Helium's Journey to cool a Particle Accelerator
- AKAP
- Sep 5, 2022
- 3 min read
The Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has been able to make a superconducting particle accelerator in an hour and a half. With a simple click of a button, the machine gets from 4.5 Kelvin down to 2 Kelvin. The accelerator is called the LCLS-II, which took six years to design, build, and install. To achieve these super low temperatures, helium acts as the perfect coolant. Helium is inputted through a cryogenic plant after which it passes trough a series of valves and cavities through the particle accelerator.
