The 45.22-tesla magnet remains just short of the record for the world’s most powerful magnet.
China apparently launched the world’s most powerful magnet for scientific research at a lab in the southeastern city of Hefei, in the Anhui province, a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) discloses.
This magnet is said to be roughly the size of a coin, with a diameter of only 33mm. Inspite of its modest size, it develops a stable magnetic field of 45.22 tesla, that is more than a million times greater than the Earth’s magnetic field.
World Record Magnets
Researchers from the U.S. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory manufactured a world record-breaking 45.5-tesla field in 2019. Having said that, these professionals did that with a test magnet that wasn’t put to use for scientific experiments.
The Hefei facility has become the greatest steady-state magnetic field that can assist scientific research.
The original world record was set by the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in the United States in 1999. Its hybrid magnet produced 450,000 gauss [45 tesla], and it has held the record for twenty-three years.
Producing such powerful magnetic fields necessitates a tremendous load of energy, though the advantages could possibly also be world-changing. Researchers worldwide are producing extremely powerful magnets in a bid to take advantage of the great capability of nuclear fusion energy, which could cut down the globe’s dependence on nonrenewable energies.
At the Heifei facility, a team of physicists put to use a powerful magnet in 2016 to conduct experiments, that led to the observation of a new physical phenomenon in carbon nanotubes. Their breakthrough has potential uses in the semiconductor industry, as scientists are endeavoring to switch out silicon with carbon in processors to generate super-fast low-power computers.
Unlocking nuclear fusion and also various other developments
Professor Kuang Guangli, the lead physicist working on the project reported that his team has successfully developed the strongest magnet on the planet for scientific research.
Regardless of the fact that the country’s magnetic field laboratory started relatively late, it merely took around ten years to make the big leap from zero to a pacesetter, making the China speed for the innovation of strong magnetic technological innovation the report concluded.
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