Project description
Advanced superconductors for high field magnets
Superconducting (SC) magnets are very powerful electromagnets that can produce greater magnetic fields with lower operation costs. SC magnets are used in a range of scientific equipment such as MRI machines, NMR spectrometers and particle accelerators. However, commercially available SC magnets are not suitable for large infrastructures such as the European Magnetic Field Laboratory (EMFL). Recently, EMFL facilities have proposed the implementation of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. The EU-funded SuperEMFL project intends to develop HTS technology that will give an entirely new dimension to the EMFL. The project aims to provide the European high field user community with higher SC magnetic fields and innovative SC magnet geometries that will result in a significant energy reduction of the static field at EMFL facilities.
Objective
The magnetic field is a powerful thermodynamic parameter to influence the state of any material system and such is an outstanding experimental tool for physics. To go beyond the conventional commercially available superconducting (SC) magnets, very large infrastructures such as the ones gathered within the European Magnetic Field Laboratory (EMLFL) are necessary. EMFL provides access to static resistive magnets (up to 38 T) and pulsed non-destructive (up to 100 T) and semi-destructive (up to 200 T) magnets for all qualified European researchers.
Some recent advances open the way for the implementation of high temperature superconductor (HTS) magnets at the EMFL facilities. The SuperEMFL design study aims to add through the development of the HTS technology an entirely new dimension to the EMFL that go beyond the commercial offer, providing the European high field user community with much higher SC fields and novel SC magnet geometries, like large-bore-high-flux magnets or radial access magnets.
The development of SC magnets that can partly replace current high-field resistive magnets will result in a significant reduction of the energy consumption of the static field EMFL facilities. This will strongly improve EMFL’s financial and ecological sustainability and at the same time boost its scientific performance and impact.
The high field values, the very low noise and vibration levels, and the possibility to run very long duration experiments will make high SC magnetic fields attractive to scientific communities that so far have rarely used the EMFL facilities (NMR, scanning probe, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies, ultra-low temperature physics, electro-chemistry …).
All these new research possibilities will strengthen the scientific performance, efficiency and attractiveness of the EMFL and thereby of the European Research Area (ERA). The implementation of this strategy should therefore be considered as a major upgrade of the EMFL.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
75794 Paris
France