Cryocoolers Overview
CryoTel® cryocoolers, Sunpower’s Stirling cryocoolers, are the result of over fifty years of technical leadership, innovation, and evolution in free-piston Stirling technology.
With Sunpower’s reputation for quality and performance, the CryoTel® family of cryocoolers is increasingly used in the medical, instrumentation, security, astronomy, telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals markets.
Sunpower’s cryocoolers integrate with and support technologies such as high-temperature superconductivity, radiation detection, optics, CCD, LNA, gas liquefaction, and more.
Sunpower CryoTel® cryocoolers provide cost advantages during product development and during volume production. Our customers also benefit from the unsurpassed reliability, efficiency, and power density of our superior cryocooler technology.
Our cryocoolers are exceptionally quiet, low in vibration, environmentally friendly, and extremely efficient. There are no maintenance requirements so our customers can expect many years of high-performance, trouble-free cooling.
Get in touch
For questions, orders or technical assistance, we are happy to help.
CryoTel Advantages
Customers have several options when choosing a cryocooler, and we hope to convince the customer why a Sunpower CryoTel® cryocooler is the best choice.
Gas Bearings
Sunpower CryoTel® cryocoolers utilize gas bearings in their design as opposed to flexure bearings. The gas bearing design has several inherent advantages over the flexure bearing.
Gas bearing designs are not dependent on precise piston and displacer initial alignment. For a flexure bearing design the initial alignment of the piston and displacer are critical: Any misalignment or change in alignment will result in reduced performance and lifetime. With our patented gas bearing technology, the piston and displacer are actively centered throughout the life of the cryocooler. This will result in a more accommodating design to environmental conditions such as shock, vibe, thermal, structural, and loading.
Reliability
Since Sunpower invented free-piston Stirling technology in the 1960s, we have been continuously improving its reliability. We use non-contacting surfaces to eliminate wear utilizing gas bearings, a hermetically sealed working environment, and adequate design margin to ensure our cryocoolers will have a long life.
Our commitment to reliability paid off, as the current mean time to failure (MTTF) of the CryoTel® cryocoolers (based on an independent 3rd party review）is over 200,000 hours. As a testament to our reliability, NASA has implemented Sunpower free-piston technology in the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator, which requires a 17 year mission life. CryoTel® cryocoolers built using our standard manufacturing processes have been approved for launch in satellites such as RHESSI, with over 131,000 continuous hours, and are currently in use on the International Space Station.
Sunpower stands behind our cryocoolers with a full replacement warranty. We believe the purchase of a CryoTel® cryocooler is a long-term investment.
Efficiency
Sunpower CryoTel® cryocoolers are the most efficient cryocoolers available on the market. This means for any particular heat lift, a CryoTel® cryocooler will be the smallest form factor available, and will also draw the least amount of power. For any size cryocooler, the CryoTel® will be the smallest. This is a benefit to customers who are integrating a cryocooler into their product.
Made in the USA
Sunpower CryoTel® cryocoolers are designed, developed, manufactured, assembled and tested in the U.S.A. in Athens, Ohio. Sunpower supports domestic sourcing and manufacturing.
Browse Products
CryoTel DS MINI
The Sunpower CryoTel DS 1.5 and DS 2.1 have been combined to create the DS Mini bringing gas bearing technology to the mini-cryocooler market.
CryoTel DS 30
CryoTel® DS 30 Stirling cryocooler offers cooling in the range of 35 to 250 K. It uses less power, has no maintenance and can be set in any orientation.
CryoTel MT
Sunpower CryoTel MT is the smallest 5W @77K cooler available at an attractive price point with a Mean Time to Failure of over 200,000 hours.
CryoTel CT
Sunpower CryoTel CT is the smallest 11W @77K cooler available at an attractive price point with a Mean Time to Failure of over 200,000 hours.
CryoTel GT and GTLT
Sunpower CryoTel GT is the smallest 16W @77K cooler available at an attractive price point with a Mean Time to Failure of over 200,000 hours. GTLT is sub-30K.