Compact Superconducting Magnets Approach World-Record Field Strengths
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Researchers at ETH Zurich have built two compact superconducting magnets that generated magnetic fields of 38 and 42 tesla, approaching the world-record 45 tesla field of a much larger, more complex system. The new magnets use a novel pancake coil design with specialized tape, requiring far less material and space than traditional high-field magnets. This development could make powerful magnetic fields more accessible for scientific research and industrial applications.
Facts First
- Two new superconducting magnets generated fields of 38 and 42 tesla using a compact, pancake coil design.
- The magnets are less than 2.5 inches in diameter, a fraction of the size of the current record-holding 45 tesla magnet.
- The pancake coil design uses unbroken REBCO tape wound into dense coils, preventing loss of conductivity.
- Researchers demonstrated the 38 tesla magnet's utility by performing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.
- The existing 45 tesla record magnet is massive, requiring 35 tons of material, 33 megawatts of power, and significant cooling infrastructure.
What Happened
Scientists at ETH Zurich created two types of compact superconducting magnets using specialized REBCO (rare earth barium copper oxide) tape. Both magnets are less than 2.5 inches in diameter and generated magnetic fields with strengths of 38 and 42 tesla. This approaches the 45 tesla field strength of the world-record hybrid resistive magnet at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), which was built in 1999 and requires massive infrastructure. The ETH Zurich team constructed their prototypes by winding flat REBCO tape into disk-shaped coils called pancakes and stacking them together. This design concentrates the magnetic field into a small volume using a shorter length of tape. The coils were built without joints, breaks, or insulation between layers to prevent loss of conductivity. The researchers generated the fields by pumping 1,000-amp currents through these dense coils and used the 38 tesla magnet to perform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).
Why this Matters to You
This advance could make extremely powerful magnetic fields... more widely available. If this technology scales, it may lead to more compact and affordable scientific instruments for analyzing materials at the atomic level, which could accelerate discoveries in chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and materials science. This could ultimately contribute to the development of new medicines, stronger materials, and more efficient technologies.
What's Next
The research demonstrates a proof-of-concept for generating high magnetic fields in a compact form factor. Further development will likely focus on scaling the technology to create even stronger fields and integrating these magnets into practical, commercially viable instruments. The success of the NMR experiment suggests these magnets could soon be adapted for use in laboratory spectrometers, potentially making high-resolution molecular analysis more accessible to researchers and industries.