Many promising technologies and discoveries require supercooled environments. Liquid helium and its isotopes are traditionally used for this. An international group of scientists led by Chinese researchers has found a potential replacement for helium, of which China has to import 94 percent. This change may be a type of previously undiscovered cobalt-based superfluid solid.

No one has yet attempted to use supersolids as the working body of a cryogenic facility. Scientists have discovered that the cobalt-based “quantum magnetic” material they studied can reduce temperatures below 1 K. However, a caveat should be made that this was only possible after cooling the experimental system to 4 K. It is impossible to reject completely different from helium cooling, but it is possible to increase the efficiency of refrigerators. This is particularly important as the final stages are the most difficult when reaching areas close to absolute zero.

The properties of superfluid solids for cooling were studied by scientists from the specialized laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the School of Physics of Beihan University, and the Neutron Science Center of the Laue-Langevin Institute in France.

“This work shows that theoretically we can achieve extremely low temperatures without relying on helium.” – The authors of the study recently published in a leading scientific journal say: Nature .

It turns out that China is not solely dependent on helium and its isotopes. The supply of cryogenic equipment such as dissolution refrigerators to China has also been approved. Gradually, China is learning to produce such systems on its own. For example, last fall the company Origin Quantum announced the development of its own version of the dissociation refrigerator, which we recently wrote about, in connection with the launch of the 72-qubit quantum computer Wukong in the cloud. However, this setup requires helium-3 and helium-4 isotopes, bringing China’s dependence on helium back once again. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the issue of cooling with the help of superfluid solids will be developed to the maximum extent if it has a clear perspective.