MAGNET LAB WINS $11.7-MILLION GRANT TO BUILD NEXT-GENERATION MAGNET
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The National Science Foundation
has awarded the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory an
$11.7-million grant for construction of an innovative magnet that will
have the potential to revolutionize a technique used to learn more
about little-understood molecules.
The magnet — which will generate extremely high
magnetic fields using just one-third the power of traditional
“all-resistive” magnets — will enable unique experiments to be
conducted at the Florida State University facility.
It will be used primarily for nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) to study proteins and nucleic acids. In the area of
condensed matter physics, electronic, magnetic, optical, and
superconducting properties of materials will be measured. For
chemistry, inorganic metal oxides, catalysts, conductors,
semiconductors, and biocompatible surfaces will be characterized.
Gregory S. Boebinger, director of the magnet lab,
praised the facility’s engineering team, which has designed and built
an estimated $40 million worth of one-of-a-kind magnets since the lab’s
creation. Established by the National Science Foundation in 1990, the
magnet lab is operated jointly by FSU, the University of Florida and
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
“The magnet engineers are absolutely critical to the
lab’s success,” Boebinger said. “The lab’s customers are its users, and
the users can’t explore new frontiers in science without cutting-edge
tools such as the Series Connected Hybrid.”
Mark D. Bird, interim director of the lab’s Magnet
Science & Technology division and a co-principal investigator on
the grant, said the lab has such great success with big magnet projects
because its engineers and technicians are the best in the world at what
they do.
“The award for the construction phase validates the
Series Connected Hybrid concept and the strength of our team,” Bird
said. “And it sets the stage for the next generation of
high-field-powered systems.”
A key advantage of the new magnet, which is a hybrid
of resistive and superconducting magnets, is that it will allow
experiments to be performed at lower cost and for longer time frames
than would be the case using existing all-resistive magnets. Resistive
magnets require both electricity and cooled water while being used;
superconducting magnets require little or no electrical power to run
once they are brought up to full field. Eventually, multiple numbers of
such hybrid systems will increase the number of experiments that can be
carried out at the lab each year.
The Series Connected Hybrid will provide a unique
combination of high field strength (36 tesla) and highly stable and
homogeneous field, a critical factor in collecting the best data with
the NMR technique. In addition, by replacing part of a resistive magnet
with a superconducting magnet, the operational costs are reduced
significantly, allowing an experiment to be run longer, which lengthens
researchers’ data-acquisition times.
A large part of the grant will be used to develop the sophisticated instrumentation and probes required for NMR science.
“Our team is working to ensure that the most
exciting science is supported by the best instrumentation,” said
project co-principal investigator Timothy A. Cross, who directs the
lab’s NMR program.
Although the new magnet will reduce power
consumption, cost savings are likely to be moderated by an expected
increase in users, given the high demand for magnet time. To learn more
about the new magnet, please visit www.magnet.fsu.edu.
Source: http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/news/pressreleases/2006september26.html
