The Very High Field Superconducting Magnet Collaboration will soon be using $2 million in Recovery Act funds to test BCCO2212, a bismuth-based material that may allow scientists to create high-field superconducting magnets able to acheive twice the strength of existing magnets.
National labs, universities and industry are all participating in the collaboration, and Fermilab, which has already started making cable for the tests, will manage $1.5 million of the new funds. Brookhaven National Lab, Florida State University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Texas A&M University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology are all members of the collaboration.
While the bismuth-based material seems to have great potential for reaching high fields, scientists will have to figure out a way around its fragility. The first step in the collaboration will be researching the material’s properties to find out whether it can be stretched for cable fabrication. Also, collaborators will encourage businesses to begin fabrication of high-field magnets for various applications.
“There is no doubt that there are uses both in high-energy physics and areas of industry and medicine that will require high-field magnets,” said Fermilab physicist Alvin Tollestrup.
