420,200 Gauss! my country breaks the world record for water-cooled magnets

After hybrid magnets and superconducting magnets won the world championship in the "doubles" and "singles" events of steady-state strong magnetic fields, another "singles" event, water-cooled magnets, was recently awarded the "gold medal" by Chinese scientists for setting a new world record - generating a steady-state strong magnetic field of 420,200 gauss (42.02 Tesla).

So far, the world's top three types of magnets, namely steady-state strong magnetic field water-cooled magnets, superconducting magnets, and hybrid magnets, have all been won by Chinese scientists through long-term research and development, thus laying a key technical foundation for China to build steady-state magnets with higher field strengths.

On September 22, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a special press conference on Hefei Science Island to announce that the water-cooled magnet independently developed by the High Magnetic Field Science Center of the institute has successfully generated a steady-state magnetic field of 420,200 gauss, setting a new world record. Photo by China News Service reporter Sun Zifa

The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (HIPS) held a special press conference on Hefei Science Island on September 22, announcing that the water-cooled magnet independently developed by the Institute's High Magnetic Field Science Center has successfully generated a steady-state magnetic field of 420,200 gauss, breaking the world record of 414,000 gauss generated by the water-cooled magnet of the U.S. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in 2017, and becoming a new milestone in the development of international high magnetic field water-cooled magnet technology.

This is another major technological breakthrough achieved by the Hefei Science Island Steady-State High Magnetic Field Experimental Device after the hybrid magnet successfully created the world steady-state magnetic field record of 452,200 Gauss in 2022. Previously, the world record for steady-state high-magnetic field superconducting magnets was held by the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Researcher Kuang Guangli, academic director of the High Magnetic Field Science Center of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that steady-state high-magnetic field magnets are divided into three types, namely water-cooled magnets, superconducting magnets, and hybrid magnets composed of water-cooled magnets and superconducting magnets. Among them, water-cooled magnets are the earliest type of magnets used by scientists. They have the advantages of flexible and fast magnetic field control and the ability to generate magnetic field strength far higher than that of superconducting magnets, which can provide reliable and efficient experimental conditions for material science research.

In this study, with the support of a joint scientific research project between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Anhui Province, the high magnetic field technology research team of Hefei Science Island has worked hard for nearly four years to innovate the magnet structure and optimize the manufacturing process, and finally achieved a water-cooled magnet that can generate a steady-state magnetic field of 420,200 gauss at a power supply of 32.3 megawatts.

Kuang Guangli said that the successful development of this world record-breaking magnet marks a new peak in the development of strong magnetic field water-cooled magnet technology in China and even the world. It can not only better meet the actual needs of scientific research users for fast-controlled steady-state strong magnetic fields, but also provide scientists with powerful experimental conditions for exploring new phenomena, revealing new laws, and developing new materials.

He also compared the development of steady-state strong magnetic field technology to a table tennis match, saying: "Water-cooled magnets and superconducting magnets are both 'singles masters', and hybrid magnets are 'mixed doubles combinations'. In 2022, we won the 'mixed doubles championship' with our comprehensive advantages. Today, we have made new breakthroughs in the field of water-cooled magnets and won a 'singles championship'."

It is understood that steady-state strong magnetic field is an extreme experimental condition required for material science research and is a "weapon" to promote major scientific discoveries. Over the past few decades, scientists around the world have achieved many major scientific research results under steady-state strong magnetic field conditions, and more than a dozen of their results have won the Nobel Prize. Therefore, the development of strong magnetic field technology has become an important field of international scientific and technological competition. At present, there are five major steady-state strong magnetic field laboratories in the world, located in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Japan and Hefei Science Island, China.