{"id":450118,"date":"2026-02-05T07:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450118\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T07:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:56:07","slug":"detecting-helium-leaks-with-sound-in-a-physics-based-sensor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450118\/","title":{"rendered":"Detecting Helium Leaks With Sound In A Physics-Based Sensor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Helium is inert, which makes it useful in a lot of different industries. But helium\u2019s colorless and odorless non-reactivity also means traditional gas sensing methods don\u2019t work. Specialized detectors exist, but are expensive and fussy. Thankfully, researcher [Li Fan] and colleagues found <a href=\"https:\/\/physicsworld.com\/a\/new-sensor-uses-topological-material-to-detect-helium-leaks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a physics-based method of detecting helium<\/a> that seems as elegant as it is simple.<\/p>\n<p>The new sensor relies on a topological <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2018\/03\/25\/quantum-electric-material-borrows-from-japanese-basketweaving\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">kagome<\/a> structure, and doesn\u2019t depend on any chemical reaction or process whatsoever. The cylinders in the structure are interconnected; air can flow in and speakers at the three corners inject sound.<\/p>\n<p>Sound waves propagate through the air within the structure at a fixed rate, and as helium enters the sensor it changes how fast the sound waves travel. This measurable shift in vibration frequency indicates the concentration of helium. It\u2019s stable, calibration-free, doesn\u2019t care much about temperature, and resets quickly. Even better, the three corners act as separate sensors, making it directional. It\u2019s even quite rugged. Just as a basket weaved in a kagome pattern is stable and resistant to damage or imperfections in the individual strips that make up the pattern, so too is this sensor only marginally affected by physical defects.<\/p>\n<p>The sensor design has been tested and shown to work with helium, but could possibly be applied to other gases. More detail is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/398757055_A_sensor_for_helium_leakage_detection_and_orientation_based_on_a_two-dimensional_acoustic_topological_material\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">available at ResearchGate<\/a>, with some <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.aip.org\/aip\/apl\/article-abstract\/127\/24\/243503\/3374773\/A-sensor-for-helium-leakage-detection-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">information about the math<\/a> behind it all in a supplemental paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Helium is inert, which makes it useful in a lot of different industries. But helium\u2019s colorless and odorless&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-450118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}