Florida’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s Physicists make world’s strongest magnet. An engineer has been completed testing of a 36-tesla magnet. This magnet has the potential to reach even higher fields. The new magnet, which is actually an upgrade to an existing one, bests the previous record of 35 tesla, jointly held by the magnet lab and the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory in France.This success reestablishes the magnet lab as the world-record owner for the highest-field resistive magnet a type of electromagnet that uses power to produce high magnetic fields. This cost-neutral modification means a higher magnetic field can be created using the same amount of power, 20 megawatts. The 36-tesla magnet will be used primarily for physics and materials science research.
This most recent world record is an acclaim to the ingenuity of the magnet labs engineers, chairman of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s User Committee and an associate professor of physics at Smith College in Massachusetts.
Because of the limits of available materials engineers were stuck at 35 tesla for about four years. But, magnet lab engineers exposed that by correct the stacking pattern of the Bitter plates, they could increase the magnetic field without increasing stress on the coils.
Resistive magnets are built in-house at the magnet lab using so-called Florida Bitter technology pioneered by researchers there.
Circular plates of copper sheet metal are stamped with cooling holes; insulators with the same pattern are placed between the plates and stacked to make a coil. Voltage is then run across the coil and current flows to make a magnetic field in the center.
