Chinese scientists have smashed the world record for the strongest steady magnetic field ever produced on Earth. The hybrid magnet could generate a field that measured 45.22 Tesla (T). That’s more than one million times stronger than the planet’s own field!
Everyone is aware of the amusement that magnetic technology can provide, whether as a child making our cutlery stick together or as an adult arranging tiny magnetic rocks to create an attractive shape on your desk. Magnetism is one of the fundamental physical laws on which the cosmos is based; thus, it’s not only limitless fun or valuable for scientific studies.
A magnetic field , a field of force created by a magnetic object or particle, is necessary for the attraction, known as magnetism, to exist. In addition, it can be made by a shifting electric field, and its presence is identified by the force it generates on other magnetic materials . Because of this, the field of study that deals with magnets are called electromagnetism.
Depending on the situation, there are numerous ways to characterize magnetic fields. However, it is generally an invisible field that applies a magnetic pull to magnetism-sensitive materials . The magnets ‘ magnetic fields also cause them to pull and torque one another.
They can be produced by an electric current , a shifting electrical field, or being near a magnet . Due to their dipolar nature, they possess both a north and south magnetic pole. Smaller magnetic fields are measured in units of Gauss rather than the Tesla, the Standard International (SI) unit used to measure magnetic fields (1 Tesla = 10,000 Guass).
Motors: Magnetic fields are used in motors to rotate a shaft. All generated currents vary, including the electric current coming to the motor, which causes the magnetic fields to rise and fall and move the motor’s core. Motors can be found almost everywhere you look. There are at least a dozen motors in your automobile, one in every appliance, one that turns the hard drive in your computer, and one that powers the supermarket’s automatic door.
Electromagnets: The classic electromagnet is the crane-operated machine that can haul tons of scrap metal and cars. This model demonstrates one of the desirable characteristics of the electromagnet: it can be switched between being and not being a magnet . This happens because an iron core becomes a magnet via an electric current circulating it, which forces the iron atoms into alignment.
A minor application is a doorbell, which uses an electromagnet to move a striker so that it can ring the bell. Another use for electromagnets is in speakers. For example, a paper cone is fastened to an electromagnet with a varying electric current . The vocalist sings a corresponding electric current is produced, a rhythmic input is applied to the electromagnet, and the paper cone vibrates to replicate the singer’s voice.
Information Storage: If a tiny electromagnet is turned on when it moves over a magnetic data storage media region, it will leave a magnetized spot; if it is turned off, it will not leave a magnetized mark. Later, if a loop of wire is quickly pushed past the magnetized spot, the resulting magnetic field will cause a slight electric current to flow. Information is read and recorded in this way. As a result, the read/write device can move by each other very rapidly, and data can be read and written at incredibly fast speeds since it doesn’t need to touch the medium to record via magnet field.
Magnetic Levitation: A property of disk drives is applied to electric trains using magnetic levitation, or Maglev. There would be little friction, and the train would be simple to maneuver if it could travel above the rail on a magnet field. The train would then be able to move at incredibly high speeds.
Many trains work this way, including the Virgin Hyperloop near Las Vegas, the Hyperloop TT in South Korea, the 600 km/h high-speed maglev train in China, and the Japanese bullet train–Shinkansen. Since the trains are propelled through the rails, it is simple to construct the rails in blocks that only enable one train to be on a block at a time.
The new record for the most powerful stable magnetic field on Earth was obtained utilizing a hybrid magnet that has been used since 2016 at the Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (SHMFF) in Hefei, China. A resistive magnet is incorporated into the design. It is placed in the center of a superconducting magnet , with a gap of 32 mm (1.3 in), allowing the two to work together to create an extraordinarily powerful magnetic field .
A record-breaking steady-state magnetic field of 45.22 T was produced on August 12 by the hybrid magnet with a power input of 26.9 MW. The resistive magnet contributed 34.22 T, while the superconducting ring made the remaining 11 T. This tops the previous record of 45 T achieved by MagLab in the US in 1999.
Professor Kuang Guangli , the Academic Director of the High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL) said:
“To achieve higher magnetic fields, we innovated the structure of the magnet and developed new materials . In addition, the manufacturing process for the Bitter discs [the magnets in the center] was also optimized.”
While other magnetic fields have attained higher strengths, this new record is specifically for a constant magnetic field . Similar hybrid technology reached a peak of 45.5 T in 2019; however, it did so only temporarily. Meanwhile, a Japanese team produced a 1,200 T magnetic field under experimental conditions in 2018, but only for around 40 microseconds before a piece of the apparatus exploded. That one is obviously not yet ready for prime time.
The team claims the new stable magnetic field facility is far more efficient. Moreover, it is already available for use in a broad range of scientific studies, and access has been granted to universities and research centers worldwide.