CryoTel® Active Vibration Cancellation (AVC)

Sunpower, Inc. introduces the Active Vibration Cancellation (AVC) system for the CryoTel^® MT, CT, and GT cryocoolers.

The active balancer uses a feedback signal from an accelerometer to cancel the first 10 harmonics of the 60 Hz operation of the cryocooler, minimizing vibration at the cold tip as well as exported vibration to its mounting structure.

Development of the AVC has opened opportunities for Sunpower cryocoolers previously unavailable due to the inherent vibration of Stirling machines.

CryoTel Cryocoolers with AVC systems have been used for applications requiring extremely low vibrations; such as laser cooling, infrared detectors, spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, atomic microscopy, high-temperature superconductivity, neutron beams, space IR applications, radio telescopes, and more.

John’s Hopkins, NASA JPL, and many others have either implemented the AVC system or are developing products that will use it. Several large terrestrial observatories such as the Subaru Telescope and Gemini South both have AVC-equipped instruments.

The AVC system includes a controller, active balancer, and accelerometer, as well as necessary cabling for power and instrumentation. The controller drives both the cryocooler and the active balancer.

The AVC system is backward compatible with any CryoTel CT, MT, or GT cryocooler. Installation is simple as it is a drop-in replacement for the standard passive balancer offered.

Sunpower plans to extend the AVC technology to our other cryocoolers in the future, including the CryoTel DS1.5 and DS2.1, as well as the DS30 when it becomes commercially available.