In field-portable high-sensitivity infrared detection applications, cooling systems must simultaneously meet requirements for low mechanical vibration, long-duration continuous operation, and miniaturization. Traditional liquid nitrogen Dewar systems are bulky and rely on cryogenic liquid refills, closed-cycle Stirling coolers suffer from mechanical vibration issues due to moving components, while the continuous operation time of open-cycle miniature Joule-Thomson (MJT) cooling systems is limited by the fixed gas cylinder volume.

To address these challenges, the research team proposed a dual-cylinder gas supply architecture consisting of a 0.5 L main cylinder and a 0.1 L buffer cylinder, developing a miniature gas management system with dimensions of only 198 × 153 × 294 mm³. This system enables safe in-situ replacement of the main cylinder during stable low-temperature operation. By successfully decoupling continuous operation duration from fixed system volume, the cooling time can be flexibly extended according to actual mission requirements by replacing spare cylinders. Performance tests demonstrate that the system can achieve over 10 hours of continuous and stable cooling at 127 ± 1 K through nine in-situ cylinder replacements. Under gas flow operation, the cold-head vibration amplitude is only 0.036 μm RMS, comparable to passive liquid nitrogen Dewar systems. After integrating a HgTe colloidal quantum dot mid-wave infrared detector, the system achieved a photo-to-dark current ratio exceeding 14:1 at 102.5 K, fully validating its application potential in high-sensitivity infrared detection.

The research findings have been published in the journal *Cryogenics* under the title "A miniaturized low-vibration cryogenic cooling system enabling continuous operation via in-situ gas cylinder replacement." Haiyue Pei, a Ph.D. student in Professor Min Qiu's group, published this research as the first author.

Paper Link：http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2026.104445