The laws of attraction are again being re-written at Florida State’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory with the introduction of the facility’s new split-coil magnet.</p>
<p>The custom built system last week shattered the 17.5 Tesla world record set in France in 1991 by creating a magnetic field of 25 Tesla.</p>
<p>“Tesla,” named after Nikola Tesla, is the measurement of the strength of a magnetic field. The new magnet’s 25 Tesla strength is 500,000 times that of Earth’s magnetic field.</p>
<p>The magnet - used in an experiment for the first time last week - is housed in the same area as several other record breakers, including the 45 Tesla Hybrid Magnet that is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.</p>
<p>To design the new magnet, scientists and engineers basically had to start from scratch.</p>
<p>“None of the technologies that the Mag Lab is famous for, that they are world leaders in, were applicable,” said scientist Jack Toth, who headed the project.</p>
<p>“We had to invent completely new methods. Nobody had even dared to try this before,” he added.</p>
<p>While world record breaking is something to brag about, scientists stressed that the biggest technological breakthrough with this magnet is the amount of accessibility to samples in the magnet’s field, calling the advancement “the biggest breakthrough in magnet technology in 20 years.”</p>
<p>Unlike other magnets, which only have a 1- to 2-inch insertion spot at the top of the magnet for experimental samples, the split coil magnet offers four conical shaped ports into the field. The elliptical openings are approximately 8 by 3 inches at the exterior, and are all placed at 90 degree angles around the magnet’s central field.</p>
<p>The typical problem of the magnetic field weakening as the number of openings increases required the team to rethink magnetic structure. Another problem conquered by engineers was withstanding the amount of force between the two magnets that is drawing them together.</p>
<p>“The construction of this magnet has been a real challenge and a real credit to the team here,” said Greg Boebinger, director of the Mag Lab.</p>
<p>“While we anticipate mainly physics and materials research benefiting from this breakthrough, other scientists from chemical and biochemical fields have expressed interest in working with the magnet,” Boebinger said of potential users.