Magnetic field researchers target 100-tesla goal

Los Alamos National Labs ^ | Saturday, March 24, 2012 | Staff

[brityank]

Magnetic field researchers target Hundred-Tesla goal

The 1,200-megajoule motor generator that powers the magnetic pulse.     ==>

Previous world record shattered during six-experiment pulse

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 22, 2012—Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s biggest magnet facility today met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to
2 million times Earth’s magnetic field.

“This is our moon shot, we’ve worked toward this for a decade and a half,” said Chuck Mielke, director of the Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos.

The team used the 100-tesla pulsed, multi-shot magnet, a combination of seven coils sets weighing nearly 18,000 pounds and powered by a massive 1,200-megajoule motor generator. There are higher magnetic fields produced elsewhere, but the magnets that create such fields blow themselves to bits in the process. The system at Los Alamos is instead designed to work nondestructively, in the intense 100-tesla realm, on a regular basis. The Los Alamos facility is one of three campuses forming the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL).

Today’s 100.75-tesla performance produced research results for scientific teams from Rutgers University, École Nationale Supérieure d’Ingénieurs de Caen (ENSICAEN), McMaster University, University of Puerto Rico, University of Minnesota, Cambridge University, University of British Columbia, and Oxford University. The science that we expect to come out varies with the experiment, but can be summarized as:

• Quantum Phase transitions and new ultra high field magnetic states
• Electronic Structure determination
• Topologically protected states of matter

“Congratulations to the Los Alamos team and our collaborators,” said LANL Director Charlie McMillan.  “Their innovations and creativity are not only breaking barriers in science, but solving national problems in the process.”

Chuck Mielke (center), director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos, celebrates with colleagues after instrument readouts confirm a world-record magnetic pulse.     ==>

In recent experiments, said Mielke, “the new magnet has allowed our users and staff to pin down the upper critical field of a new form of superconductor, discover two new magnetically ordered states in a material that has eluded scientists for nearly 30 years, observe magneto-quantum oscillations in a high temperature superconductor to unprecedented resolution, determine a topological state of a new material, and discover a new form of magnetic ordering in an advanced magnetic material.”

The LANL team set on August 18 last year a new world record for the strongest magnetic field ever delivered by a nondestructive magnet. The scientists achieved an enormous 97.4 tesla—a magnetic field nearly 100 times more powerful than the giant junkyard car-lifting magnets, and some 30 times stronger than the field delivered during a medical MRI scan. That record was broken this morning as the team ramped up the big magnet again, reaching 98.35 T, with an eye toward the afternoon’s 3-digit event.

Mielke said that since the team’s latest foray into magnetic fields above 90 tesla, they’ve demonstrated that they can measure:

• Upper critical fields of superconductors—radio frequency contactless conductivity
• Quantum magnetic transitions—magnetic susceptibility
• Electrical resistivity—magnetotransport
• Optical spectroscopy—visible light transmission
• Crystallographic length change—fiber-optic dilatometry

“Now, at 100 tesla, we can focusing our efforts to get multiple user experiments completed in single magnet runs on the big magnets since they are so oversubscribed. More than a dozen people are working together to make this happen here at the Laboratory,” said Mielke.

The ability to create pulses of extremely high magnetic fields nondestructively provides researchers with an unprecedented tool for studying a range of scientific questions: from how materials behave under the influence of very high magnetic fields, to research into the quantum behavior of phase transitions in solids.

Researchers can explore extremes of low temperature and high magnetic field, which will contribute to our understanding of superconductivity, magnetic-field-induced phase transitions, and so-called quantum critical points, in which small changes in materials properties at very low temperature have dramatic effects on physical behavior. The magnet could also be used as a nanoscale microscope.

The Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos is one of three campuses of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the other two being at Florida State University, Tallahassee (continuous fields, magnetic resonance, and general headquarters) and the University of Florida Gainesville (ultra-low temperatures at high magnetic fields). The NHMFL is sponsored primarily by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research, with additional support from the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of Energy.

• Video of the laboratory and today’s record-setting event will be posted to the LANL YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/LosAlamosNationalLab
• Take a virtual tour of the NHMFL Pulsed Magnet Laboratory at LANL online here: http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/mpa/nhmfl/users/tour/welcome.html

About Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

LANL news media contact: Nancy Ambrosiano, (505) 667-0471, nwa@lanl.gov

[org.whodat]

Flux capacitor just around the corner.

[cripplecreek]

So that’s where my keys went.

[brityank]

Technology Ping. :^)

[EEGator]

[cripplecreek]

Amateurs

[SpaceBar]

Ping me when they put someone inside of it tripping on the spice melange.

[EEGator]

Don’t mess with Magneto!

[freedumb2003]

I am picturing everything metallic for miles around flying towards the unit like what happened to Wile E. Coyote:

[Jack Hydrazine]

1 tesla = 10,000 gauss or 1 Weber/m²

Orders of Magnitude
31 µT (3.1×10−5 T) - strength of Earth's magnetic field at 0° latitude (on the equator).
5 mT - the strength of a typical refrigerator magnet.
1.25 T - magnetic field intensity at the surface of a neodymium magnet.
1 T to 2.4 T - coil gap of a typical loudspeaker magnet.
1.5 T to 3 T - strength of medical magnetic resonance imaging systems in practice, experimentally up to 17 T.
What's a tesla?"

[The Antiyuppie]

One of my fillings popped out three days ago...coincidence? I think not.

[cripplecreek]

Tesla was the Chuck Norris of inventors.

[org.whodat]

True, this type of research is the key to unlimited energy. A while back Rush said there was not such thing as renewable energy, I cracked up, he has no ideal how much energy the earth throws away each day in lighting strikes.

http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml

[org.whodat]

http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml

[jesseam]

The Calutrons used to separate U235 from U238 at Oak Ridge for the uranium bomb developed 0.42 Tesla. Evan at that strength any object in your pocket like a pocket knife would be ripped out if you walked too close.

[org.whodat]

The man, said the source of unlimited power was balled lightning, he was and is correct. People just did not understand how smart Tesla

[jesseam]

That is even, my dogs name is Evan :-)

[EEGator]

We have a lightning research center here at UF. I have two books on Tesla. He really got the shaft from history.

[Reeses]

Uh-oh, bad chroma. An Obama Just-us dept. lawsuit is on the way.

[cripplecreek]

Edison really screwed up in letting Tesla slip away. He paid for it again and again over the years too.

[Carry_Okie]

True, this type of research is the key to unlimited energy. A while back Rush said there was not such thing as renewable energy, I cracked up, he has no ideal how much energy the earth throws away each day in lighting strikes.

I cracked up because you apparently have no "ideal" that capturing lightening strikes would be CONVERTED energy, not renewable energy. Energy can be converted or stored, but not "renewed." Rush is correct.

[Steely Tom]

Energy density of free space in 100 Tesla field is 3.98 gigajoules per cubic meter, or almost 4 kJ/cm³.

Energy density of a lithium battery is 1.3 kJ/cm³.
Energy density of gasoline is 34 kJ/cm³.

[mrsmith]

About the magnet:
http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/mediacenter/features/meetthemagnets/multishot.html
“...The field of this magnet lasts 15 milliseconds, allowing precise scientific measurements at the highest fields in the world. Although 15 milliseconds may not sound like much time, it is about two thousand times longer than what is otherwise available at this field intensity.”

[steve86]

Yeah, but is it renewable?

[bmwcyle]

Best post of the week.

[darth]

I once worked with a brilliant alumni of Los Alamos.

He had a theory that you could use very high magnetic fields to cause nuclear waste to give up energy at a fantastic rate. You could then use nuke waste for generating power.

He died before he was able to develop the theory fully.

[org.whodat]

Wrong, you can capture it from the earth, we just do not know how. And the earth makes new lighting every second some where.

[Mike Darancette]

Today’s 100.75-tesla performance produced research results for scientific teams from Rutgers University

That would make your blood clot?

[Carry_Okie]

Wrong, you can capture it from the earth, we just do not know how.

I said that energy can be captured. It cannot be renewed.

And the earth makes new lighting every second some where.

So? Just because there is so much energy from that source that we cannot use it all does not mean that the release of charge is "renewed." That the earth has a magnetic field and generates Coriolis forces that produce electrical charges does not mean that the energy released in those discharges is "renewed." The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the conservation of energy say that there will be loss. The energy will not be renewed. The earth will slow in rotation and the sun will consume its hydrogen. Just because there just happens to be a lot of it does not mean that it will be "renewed."

[EEGator]

I was just taking a break from my Thermodynamics studying, and I read this. Time for a break from my break. :)

[aruanan]

Energy density of free space in 100 Tesla field is 3.98 gigajoules per cubic meter, or almost 4 kJ/cm³.
Energy density of a lithium battery is 1.3 kJ/cm³.
Energy density of gasoline is 34 kJ/cm³.

How quickly they forget. Or never knew.

[Carry_Okie]

I was just taking a break from my Thermodynamics studying, and I read this. Time for a break from my break. :)

Serves you right! ;-)

Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn't bother you any more. - Arnold Sommerfeld

Next break, try Isaac Asimov's short story, The Last Question.

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[Kickass Conservative]

How much do these guys make that they can afford 100 Teslas?

Must be the Tax Credits.

[cripplecreek]

Watched an episode of “The Universe” a while back that was about what happens as the universe dissipates and runs out of energy. What matter is left will be so distant that it won’t be able to interact or be converted into energy.

[COBOL2Java]

Hah! Amateurs!

[COBOL2Java]

LOL! Ya beat me!

[EEGator]

Thanks for the link to the stories. Ironically enough, today I’m studying the entropy chapter.

[Carry_Okie]

Re your episode of “The Universe,” it’s a ripoff of Asimov’s idea written in the ‘50s, “The Last Question,” one of the most famous sci-fi short stories ever written. See the link in post 32 for an online version.

[thulldud]

“You humans and your ‘pulsed’ magnetic field generators.”

[AFPhys]

“Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you any more.” - Arnold Sommerfeld

-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—

WOW! Spectacular quote!

I absolutely agree with that, although I really was not very confident even the second time through, and by my fourth course I was as baffled as ever. I worked on items having to do with thermo (P.Chem, Heat flow engineering, Plasma phys, cosmology, etc.) at least a dozen times over the years. I have never gotten any smarter, it seems.

Recently there is a small group of people who are saying CO2 can not cause Greenhouse effect (as far as I can see their argument) and who have become known as the (sky-)dragon slayers, or some such. They claim to rely on 2nd Law as their support. First sight, it seems their arguments ought to be easy to refute, and though I actually agree with them that CO2 will not cause CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) it seems they go too far. However, with their invoking 2nd Law arguments, I have to get very skittish about saying either yea or nay. What makes it worse, I have to say that other scientists who I usually respect completely (Lindzen, Spencer, non-PhD Anthony Watts, etc.) make arguments against I consider not 100% convincing. Of course the usual CAGW crew is all against them, but they can be discounted out of hand.

I really need someone who actually understands thermo, someone who is truly knowledgeable in the field, to address their argument convincingly. The last phrase of the quote needs some modification for me: “... it doesn’t bother you any more” + UNTIL you actually try to apply it rigorously.

I am hoping some serious physicist (Shaviv, etc.) chooses to address this issue some day. Otherwise, I fear it will take me months of study of thermo yet again to untangle the argument one day.

[AFPhys]

I should have pinged you to my reply#41 ...

[Carry_Okie]

WOW! Spectacular quote!

It was quoted in my Thermo text at Harvey Mudd. I read it once, laughed until my guts hurt, and never forgot it.

I worked on items having to do with thermo (P.Chem, Heat flow engineering, Plasma phys, cosmology, etc.) at least a dozen times over the years. I have never gotten any smarter, it seems.

I feel your pain. :-)

As I raised my small children, I emphasized heat transfer and control boundaries over and over, so that they would learn to "see" heat flow even as pre-schoolers. I did experiments with exothermic and endothermic processes, so that they could see it. I beat my brains out looking for examples around them.

They've had far fewer problems with it than I had.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks brityank.

...producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to 2 million times Earth's magnetic field... There are higher magnetic fields produced elsewhere, but the magnets that create such fields blow themselves to bits in the process. The system at Los Alamos is instead designed to work nondestructively, in the intense 100-tesla realm, on a regular basis.

Superconductivity ping.

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[Paradox]

Whoa! As a former engineering student, we learned that we really were never a master of Thermo, we just could convince it to give us the right answers, most of the time anyway.
Great quote!

[TheOldLady]

Thank you for the nice link, Orgie. It’s very interesting that lightning occurs in a definite pattern rather than being evenly distributed across the globe.

[wxgesr]

“Isaac Asimov’s short story, The Last Question.”

Loved it, thanks!

[KC Burke]

Thanks for the link. Good read.