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The MagLab is funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida.

Pulsed Magnet Definition

There are many different types of magnets. What is a pulsed magnet? A pulsed magnet is designed to produce magnetic fields that are so large that the magnet can't be energized for more than a very short period of time without destroying itself. The pulses used to run a pulsed magnet are pulses of electrical energy.

A scientist uses the 100 T "multishot" pulsed magnet at the Los Alamos branch of the MagLab.

A scientist uses the 100 T "multishot" pulsed magnet at the Los Alamos branch of the MagLab.

A pulsed magnet is designed to produce magnetic fields that are so large that the magnet can't be energized for more than a very short period of time without destroying itself. The pulses used to run a pulsed magnet are pulses of electrical energy.

At the MagLab's Pulsed Field Facility located within Los Alamos National Lab, instead of hooking up the magnet simply to the power supply terminals as we do in Tallahassee, we hook it up to an energy storage device, either a capacitor bank or a generator, and we dump all the energy into the magnet in the course of a short period of time, from microseconds through milliseconds to a fraction of a second. And we can exceed any magnetic field produced at either the Florida State or the University of Florida campuses.

Many physics phenomena depend on the square of the magnetic field, so even a little boost in the magnetic field buys you a lot of physics.


Last modified on 31 December 2022