The USA National MagLab made a magnet that broke the world record for an all-superconducting magnet.
Built with both traditional and novel superconducting materials, the magnet reached a field of 27 teslas on June 5 in a test that exceeded designers' expectations. The magnet is a smaller version of an even more powerful magnet due for completion next year — a 32 tesla all-superconducting magnet that will be substantially stronger than any such magnet built to date.
Tesla ("T" for short) is a measure of magnetic field strength: A typical magnet used in an MRI machine is 2 to 3 Tesla. The 27 Tesla field reached last week was 3.5 Tesla stronger than the strongest superconducting magnet currently in operation (in Lyon, France) and 1 Tesla stronger than a superconducting test magnet built earlier this year in South Korea. For decades, engineering and materials advances have nudged the record up only bit by bit. Last week's feat brings MagLab engineers to the home stretch of the seven-year 32 T project.
This YBCO test coil helped the MagLab set a new world record for superconducting magnets: 27 teslas.
The strongest superconducting user magnet in the world currently has a field strength of 23.5 tesla. When this ambitious project is completed in 2016, the strongest superconducting magnet on the planet will be housed at the MagLab. At 32 tesla, it will be a whopping 8.5 tesla stronger than the current record – a giant leap in a technology that, since the 1960s, has seen only baby steps of 0.5 to 1 tesla. In June 2015, a test for the 32 tesla magnet set a new world record of 27 teslas for an all-superconducting magnet.
The groundbreaking instrument will considerably reduce the cost of scientific experiments and make high-field research accessible to more scientists. The system will also support decades worth of new science. Due in large part to the quieter environment a superconducting magnet offers over a resistive magnet of equivalent strength, the 32 tesla will help scientists break new ground in nuclear magnetic resonance, electron magnetic resonance, molecular solids, quantum oscillation studies of complex metals, fractional quantum Hall effect and other areas.
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