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Post by swamprat on Aug 23, 2017 8:57:00 GMT -6
FSU MagLab researchers set world record with 41.4-tesla instrument Byron Dobson, Democrat senior writer Published 5:46 p.m. ET Aug. 22, 2017
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory's newest world-record holding magnet, the first resistive magnet to go over 40 tesla, pictured Tuesday. (Photo: Hali Tauxe/Democrat)
The world’s top scientific minds naturally always are drawn to the latest and the best when it comes to tools that advance their quests in research.
A team at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University has answered their call and then some by producing the world’s most powerful resistive magnet.
The 41.4 teslas instrument sets a new world record, helping FSU to reclaim a status it held for 19 years until 2014. It also shores up the lab’s research capabilities for years to come.
The world record was attained at 1:10 p.m. Monday, culminating 2 ½ years of scientific know-how, planning, designing and building all done at the MagLab’s site in Innovation Park.
By doing so, FSU team overtakes previous records of 38.5 teslas in Hefei, China, and the 37.5 teslas magnet in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.Teslas are a unit of magnetic field strength.
“When I look back at where we started and where we are now, it’s a testament to the intelligence and dedication of the MagLab family,” said Tim Murphy, DC Field Facility director at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. “It benefits not only science and technology in the United States, but it benefits the entire world.
Murphy said scientists from around the world come to Tallahassee each year to conduct research, “even though they have MagLabs in their own countries.”
“We’re just that good,” said Murphy, who first came to the lab in 1994, four years after a grant was awarded to build the world research center in Tallahassee.
More than 1,700 scientists from around the world used the lab’s magnets last year.
According to FSU, The MagLab’s magnet fleet includes different kinds of instruments: resistive magnets, made of copper and silver, like the new 41.5 teslas magnet; superconducting magnets, which require pricey materials; and hybrid magnets, a combination of both designs.
The MagLab also is home to the 45-tesla magnet, which is the world’s strongest continuous-field magnet. That, unlike the new magnet, is a hybrid instrument.
Monday’s world record is important in that it will advance research of technologies and materials conducted by scientists from around the world. This means Tallahassee will be even more of a destination for some of the greatest engineers and scientists in the world.
“What the magnetic field does is it allows us to select specific energy states in materials and by doing that we can more fully understand the underlying physics,” Murphy said.
“Our world is governed by the electrons and how they behave in a material,” he said. The discovery will assist research in condense physics matters or the study of solid state material, and in materials science, where the focus is on understanding properties of given materials.
The hulking, 6-ton magnet dominates Cell 6 of the lab’s DC Field Facility. It is connected to a series of foot-wide water pipes that send cold water through the instrument, which uses 32 megawatts of electricity to generate its high magnetic field, during operation.
The cost, including coils, is $3.5 million.
Jack Toth, resistive magnet program leader for magnet science and technology, designed the magnet and served as project leader.
The effort was dubbed Project 11, a reference to the 1984 mockumentary “Spinal Tap,” FSU said. In one scene, a guitarist shows off his unique amplifier, which has a top setting of 11 — one notch higher than the standard 10.
“Our highest mission at the MagLab is to provide the highest magnet fields to a user community,” Toth said. The lab attracts more than 300 researchers to its DC Field Facility.
Toth said the design took one year, followed by making all of the parts and assembly, over another 18 months. The assembly was headed up by the engineering department and chief engineer, Scott Bole.
“The parts are manufactured by a variety of outside specialized suppliers and assembled all here in-house,” he said of the extensive collaboration involved from people working inside the Tallahassee complex.
“Every one of the thousand pieces had to be inspected for quality control,” he said.
Toth said Monday’s test reaching the world record was within 5 percent of the predictions of the magnet’s capability.
“It reached exactly what we promised or predicted with 5 percent less power,” he said. “Pretty much everything was on target. It is something we were proud to be able to provide.”
His reaction, he said, encompasses, “joy, satisfaction and pride.”
The record 41.4 teslas is an achievement that will stand “for years to come,” Toth said.
“These opportunities don’t come around all the time,” he said.
www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2017/08/22/fsu-maglab-researchers-set-world-record-41-4-tesla-instrument/590886001/
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Post by swamprat on Feb 24, 2018 21:25:52 GMT -6
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) is a facility in Tallahassee Florida. It is jointly managed by Florida State University, the University of Florida, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It performs magnetic field research in physics, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, geochemistry, biochemistry. The lab is supported by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida, and works in collaboration with private industry.
Currently the lab holds a world record of possessing the world's strongest magnet for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy experiments. The 33-ton engineering marvel, called the series connected hybrid (SCH) magnet, successfully broke the record during a series of tests conducted by MagLab engineers and scientists. The instrument reached its full field of 36 tesla on 15 November 2016.
The NHMFL is the only laboratory of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, and one of a dozen such facilities in the world. It is staffed by a team of over 400 staff, including over 120 Ph.D. scientists and professional engineers. It is also the world's largest magnetic field laboratory at 330,000 square feet and highest powered facility with an extremely quiet 40 megawatt power supply. The NHMFL houses some of the world's highest field magnets that have been designed and advanced by an in-house engineering group. The continuous field magnet systems available to users include resistive, superconducting, and hybrid magnets. Resistive magnets with fields up to 33.1±0.2 Tesla (or 36.1 Tesla using Holmium flux concentrator pole pieces) are available in a 32mm bore, NMR magnets with high homogeniety to 24.6 Tesla (~1Ghz), and pulsed field magnets to 63.3 Telsa in 10ms pulses (all these being current world records, although we keep breaking them with new design advances!) Work is progressing on the 45 Tesla hybrid continuous magnet, which should come on line this next summer. In addition, a variety of superconducting magnets support research in condensed matter and magnetic resonance studies.
The laboratory has a strong and active research program in Condensed Matter Physics, in both theory and experiment, and is headed by NHMFL Chief Scientist and Nobel Laureate J. Robert Schrieffer. The in-house faculty, postdoctoral, and graduate students collectively research high temperature superconductivity, organic conductors, heavy fermions, quantum Hall effect, metal-insulator transitions, magnetic superlattices, and colossal magnetoresistance.
www.physics.fsu.edu/research/national-high-magnetic-field-laboratory
I attended the lab's annual open house today, along with 8,000 other visitors. Took a few pics.
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Post by swamprat on Apr 2, 2018 15:27:42 GMT -6
More on the Mag Lab:National Science Foundation awards Mag Lab $184 million, solidifying its operations at FSUByron Dobson, Democrat senior writer Published April 2, 2018
The National MagLab’s future at Florida State University has been solidified with the National Science Foundation’s award of $184 million over the next five years.
The latest award brings total NSF funding to $867 million and represents a nearly 10-percent increase in funding over the previous five-year period, FSU said Monday morning.
“This announcement comes as a strong endorsement for the importance of high magnetic field research in America’s science portfolio,” said Greg Boebinger, National MagLab director. “The true strength of the MagLab comes from the scientific impact of our users from across the nation, users who access these magnets to make discoveries of new materials, find energy solutions and explore the science that illuminates life itself.”
More on the MagLab: The MagLab is headquartered at FSU, with operations at the University of Florida and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The MagLab attracts more than 1,700 researchers from around the world who use the facility and its instruments in engineering and technology studies.
In one month, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory facility paid a $236,735 electric bill for powering up its magnets. And that didn't include another $106,000 to keep the lights on and run the air-conditioning at the sprawling facility on the Southwest side of Tallahassee.
Over a one-year period ending in June of 2017, the MagLab paid about $3.4 million to the city of Tallahassee for power, split between $2.3 million in electricity for the magnets and $1.1 million for the facility's other power needs.
It's a hefty price, but physicists and other researchers believe it's worth the cost to have the largest and highest-powered magnet laboratory in the world.
The attraction is access to the research center’s assembly of powerful magnets, including the world’s strongest continuous high-field magnet at 45 teslas and a pulsed magnet that can repeatedly produce a magnetic field of 100 teslas — 2 million times stronger than the Earth’s.
The National MagLab is home to the most powerful magnet in the world for nuclear magnetic resonance, a technique biologists, chemists and materials scientists use to study complex structures, and the 32-tesla all-superconducting magnet, the first magnet in the world to use high-temperature superconducting materials.
“NSF is proud to support a facility that has broken — and holds — many world records in magnet technology,” Anne Kinney, NSF assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, said in a release. “But beyond the records, the MagLab enables the world’s scientific and engineering community to advance both fundamental science and applied research that benefits society, from next-generation electronics to cutting-edge medicine to energy-efficient systems.”
Recent discoveries at the National MagLab include: Scientists have demonstrated a way to improve the performance of the powerful building blocks of quantum computers (called quantum bits, or qubits) by reducing interference from the environment, hastening the realization of quantum computers.
Researchers learned how an intriguing nanomaterial that is part of the carbon family — a metallofullerene — is formed, findings that could help pave the way for applications in biomedicine and renewable energy.
Using the world’s strongest MRI machine, researchers have discovered a new, innovative way to classify the severity of a stroke, aid in stroke diagnosis and evaluate potential treatments.
“This renewal will allow the U.S. to maintain international leadership in critical areas of magnet science and technology, and to break new ground in understanding novel materials for quantum computing and information technology,” said Linda Saphochak, director of the NSF Division of Materials Research.
In addition to the federal funding, the MagLab operations have been bolstered by state funding, including $12 million last year.
FSU estimates that for every state dollar invested, the state receives $6.57 in economic activity. Over the next 20 years, it is expected to realize a projected $2.4 billion economic output, $1 billion in income and more than 25,000 jobs.
The MagLab is a major economic driver in Tallahassee’s economy. Funding helps employ more than 400 researchers, technicians and other employees who live in Tallahassee.
A report from the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis, says the MagLab drives more than $121 million in economic output, $51 million in income and more than 1,200 jobs.
“This one-of-a-kind facility is an important part of Florida State University and the entire Florida economy,” said Gary Ostrander, FSU’s vice president for research. “This announcement means that the world’s most prestigious magnet lab will remain headquartered right here at FSU in Tallahassee, anchoring our university’s preeminent science and research efforts and facilitating discoveries that could change our world.”
www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/04/02/national-science-foundation-awards-mag-lab-184-million-solidifying-its-operations-fsu/477819002/
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