Europe's most powerful electro-magnet
Conventional magnets employ a monolithic coil design, but can only manage to produce a maximum field of about 60 T. The so-called coil-in/coil-ex scheme uses two coaxial magnets that are energized with two different power supplies, which permits the generation of up to 80 T during several milliseconds. In order to cope with the extreme pressure of several hundreds of Mega-Pascal imposed by the magnetic field, the coil-ex is constructed with steel-reinforced copper wire and externally supported by a stainless steel mantle. The coil-in, which is exposed to even higher pressures, is additionally supported by composite fibres reaching a strength of several Giga-Pascal. Both coils are immersed in a liquid Nitrogen cryostat to compensate for the intense heating during the pulse. To assure the proper functioning of the system, the respective pulse generators had to be specifically adapted and synchronized. For scientific applications both high and low temperature inserts and a fast data acquisition system were designed. So far, experiments have been conducted up to 76T, a world-wide record for non-destructive magnetic fields in user facilities. Experiments up to 80 T are planned once a set of spare coils has been made available. The coil-in/coil-ex assembly stationed at Toulouse represents the outcome of a collective effort of several European pulsed field laboratories in the framework of the Advanced Research Magnet Systems (ARMS) project. The success of the project refers largely to the combination and integration of specific technologies developed by the project partners at Amsterdam/Nijmegen, Berlin, Leuven, Oxford and Toulouse.