The cryocooler market was valued at $2.51 billion in 2021, and it is set to reach $4.45 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 6.6% between 2021 and 2030, according to a research report by P&S Intelligence.
The growth of this industry is mainly ascribed to the increasing requirement for medical and healthcare services in developing countries and the growing usage of cryocoolers in nuclear MRIs, cryosurgeries, proton therapies, MRI systems and liquefaction of oxygen in hospitals.
The aerospace & defense category is projected to grow at the fastest rate of over 7% in the coming years. Cryocoolers are adopted in industries with sensors and sensitive electronics for commercial scientific space or military payloads.
The best-known publicly accessible LEO sensors are LANDSAT and MODIS sensors, with three-dimensional resolutions of 30 m and 250/500/1,000 m respectively. Such applications' requirements are very low vibration and capability to endure satellite launch vibration, power efficiency, and high reliability and can be exposed to space radiation for a longer time.
Moreover, cryocoolers are also extensively used in the missile guidance application, as enhanced guided-missiles technology these days is a vital requirement of a modern military inventory. From short-range anti-armor and anti-air missiles to medium, air-to-surface long-range air-to-air weapons, cruise, and ballistic missiles are now established as key elements of the most capable national militaries.
Additionally, cryocoolers are gradually discovering their applications in the semiconductor fabrication sector, because of the reduced costs of large-scale fabrication processes and the increased demand for semiconductors. Similarly, the demand for cryocoolers will surge moderately for high-temperature superconductors in wireless mobile phone base stations across the world.
Furthermore, the growing demand for cooling down IR sensors utilized in electromagnetic thermography offers many opportunities to small-sized cryocoolers producers. An electromagnetic camera or thermal imaging camera is a prominent feature of mid-IR sensors and is rapidly accepted in space exploration tasks for image sensing and data mining.
North America held the largest share of the cryocooler market of over 32%, In 2021. This can be credited to the increasing expenditure in the defense industry and medical research and healthcare innovations.
Furthermore, the snowballing cancer cases is one of the major reasons driving the market in the region.
The European market is projected to grow moderately. This can be ascribed to the extensive use of cryocoolers in high-end detectors and systems including, thermal weapon sights, missile warning systems and scaled-downed payloads in the region.
Therefore, the increasing requirement for medical and healthcare services in developing countries and the growing usage of cryocoolers in nuclear magnetic resonance instruments, cryosurgeries, and proton therapies, such factors will contribute to the industry growth in the future.
