Posted on 03/25/2012 5:21:55 PM PDT by 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, 2012Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratorys 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 Earths magnetic field.This is our moon shot, weve 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).
Todays 100.75-tesla performance produced research results for scientific teams from Rutgers University, École Nationale Supérieure dIngénieurs 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 Laboratorys 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 teslaa 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 afternoons 3-digit event.
Mielke said that since the teams latest foray into magnetic fields above 90 tesla, theyve demonstrated that they can measure:
- Upper critical fields of superconductorsradio frequency contactless conductivity
- Quantum magnetic transitionsmagnetic susceptibility
- Electrical resistivitymagnetotransport
- Optical spectroscopyvisible light transmission
- Crystallographic length changefiber-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 todays 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
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.
Energy density of a lithium battery is 1.3 kJ/cm³.
Energy density of gasoline is 34 kJ/cm³.
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.”
Yeah, but is it renewable?
Best post of the week.
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.
Wrong, you can capture it from the earth, we just do not know how. And the earth makes new lighting every second some where.
That would make your blood clot?
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."
I was just taking a break from my Thermodynamics studying, and I read this. Time for a break from my break. :)
Serves you right! ;-)
Next break, try Isaac Asimov's short story, The Last Question.
bflr
Must be the Tax Credits.
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.
LOL! Ya beat me!
Thanks for the link to the stories. Ironically enough, today I’m studying the entropy chapter.
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.
“You humans and your ‘pulsed’ magnetic field generators.”
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