Cooling Performance Test of High Capacity Stirling Cooler for Ultra-Low Temperature Application

This paper describes cooling performance test of a high capacity ultra-low temperature stirling cooler for semiconductor manufacturing process. A stirling cooler has the better efficiency and reliability compare with a conventional vapor-compression refrigerator at ultra low temperature around -100℃. Moreover, it uses helium gas as a refrigerant, of which GWP is zero. In this study, a gamma-type stirling cooler driven by a double-acting linear compressor is developed and tested. From experiments, the developed stirling cooler reaches from room temperature to -100℃ within 10 minutes. The cooling capacity and electric input power are measured for a wide range of input voltages, and it shows 0.39 to 1.75 kW of cooling capacity and 0.282 to 0.358 of COP at -100℃ of cold-end temperature.