The dilution refrigerator principle was suggested by Heinz London in 1952.

H. London, G.R. Clarke, and E. Mendoza proposed a prototype of continuous refrigerator in 1962.

It was realized in 1964 in the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratorium at Leiden University by Das, P.; Ouboter, R. B.; Taconis, K. W. (1965). A Realization of a London‐Clarke‐Mendoza Type Refrigerator. Low Temperature Physics LT9. p. 1253. (Tmin~220mK)

B.S. Neganov and co‐workers in Dubna and H.E. Hall and co‐workers in Manchester went below 100 mK (1966). Dubna rapidly reached 25 mK.

The principles and methods of dilution refrigeration have been substantially developed by J. Wheatley et al. at La Jolla.

Sydoriak suggested the use of plastic heat exchangers due to the low Kapitza resistance (cited in

Radebaugh and Siegwarth suggested in 1974 the use of sintered silver powders in low temperature heat exchangers. Link to article

Modern « wet » refrigerators are based on the CNRS‐Grenoble design (Frossati et al.). The development of sintered silver heat exchangers Tmin led to Tmin~2 mK.

« Dry » refrigerators were developed by K. Uhlig et al. on GM coolers (1993) (strong vibrations limit this approach)

« Dry » refrigerators were developed on Pulse‐tube coolers, independently by K. Uhlig et al. (2002) and by H. Godfrin et al. (1999 to 2003, first commercial unit delivered by Air Liquide in 2003)

The large refrigerator built in Lancaster (G.R. Pickett et al.) holds the present record of low temperatures, 1.75 mK