All articles tagged with #superconducting magnets
New research suggests that superconducting magnets used in dark matter experiments could serve as highly sensitive detectors for high-frequency gravitational waves, expanding the observable frequency range and opening new avenues for cosmic exploration.
MIT claims that their superconducting magnet-based design for fusion energy, previously tested in 2021, is not only impressive in a lab setting but also practical and economically viable. The research, published in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, shows that the design could significantly reduce the cost and size of fusion reactors, making fusion power more feasible. The use of an experimental material called REBCO and the removal of insulation around the magnet's coils have contributed to this breakthrough, with tests demonstrating robustness and stability even under extreme conditions.
Engineers at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center have achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet made from high-temperature superconducting material, a crucial milestone for building a fusion power plant. The successful test, detailed in six peer-reviewed papers, demonstrates the practicality of such strong magnets at a greatly reduced size, potentially changing the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40. The new high-temperature superconducting material, REBCO, allows operation at 20 kelvins, offering significant advantages in material properties and practical engineering. The innovative magnet design, including the elimination of insulation around the superconducting tape, has been validated through rigorous testing, providing a solid foundation for the development of fusion devices.
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have achieved a major milestone in the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) by completing 111 high-tech superconducting cables. These cables will be used to create the strongest focusing magnets ever installed in an accelerator, condensing particle beams before they collide in detectors. The upgrade, known as the High-Luminosity LHC, will significantly increase the amount of experimental data collected and allow scientists to search for rare phenomena and investigate mysteries in physics. The magnets, made of niobium-tin, will operate at roughly 12 tesla, several hundred thousand times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab's Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division have developed a method for detecting and predicting the local loss of superconductivity in large-scale magnets that are capable of generating high magnetic fields. The method employs an array of Hall probes to measure the magnetic fields produced around Rare-earth barium copper oxide (ReBCO) CORC cables. This innovative technique has the potential to serve as a key element in solving the quench protection for high-temperature superconductor cables, a fundamental issue for the scientific community working on the next generation of superconducting magnets.