Oxford Instruments Nanoscience has announced it has achieved 22.07 Tesla at 4.2 Kelvin in a fully superconducting magnet using LTS and HTS materials.
The announcement comes as a result of the company's studies into the application of high temperature semiconducting (HTS) and low temperature semiconducting (LTS) technology in the manufacture of high magnetic fields.
The 22 Tesla magnet was built by integrating two HTS coils into a 20 Tesla, 78mm-wide bore magnet.
The HTS coils are 10cm high concentric solenoids made from 1.5mm diameter Bi-2212 round wire.
Each coil has six layers and was manufactured using the wind and react technique and then epoxy potted under vacuum.
The inner diameters of the two coils are 25mm and 55mm respectively.
The 20 Tesla wide-bore outer magnet was made from NbTi and RRP Nb3Sn wires.
Both LTS and HTS wires were developed and supplied by Oxford Superconducting Technology, part of the Oxford Instruments Group.
Until recently wide bore magnets above 18 Tesla could only be achieved by super-cooling the magnet to 2.2 Kelvin.
Operating at 4.2 Kelvin - the temperature of liquid helium at atmospheric pressure - reduces the liquid helium consumption.
This is crucial, as the cost of liquid helium has substantially risen over the last few years.
It also allows the use of a recondensing cooling solution, using a mechanical cryocooler (such as a pulse tube refrigerator), reducing the helium consumption even further by re-liquefying liquid helium as it evaporates from the magnet vessel.
Oxford Instruments said the benefit of the 22 Tesla magnet is that it can accommodate HTS insert coils in the drive to achieve a fully superconducting 25-30 Tesla magnet system.
Such high fields are needed by the research community in physical and life sciences to explore new areas in nanotechnology and bioscience.
At present such magnetic fields can only be achieved using resistive magnets which have very high power consumption and require specialised infrastructure.
The successful operation of the 22 T magnet is a step forward in the IMPDAHMA project to develop an integrated modelling package for the design of advanced HTS magnet applications.
The magnet will provide a platform for the high field measurements of HTS coils that are necessary to develop the complex HTS modelling tool.
IMPDAHMA is a three-year research and development collaboration project partially funded by the Technology Strategy Board in the UK and led by Oxford Instruments Nanoscience, in collaboration with Vector Fields and the Institute of Cryogenics at Southampton University.
Dr Ziad Melhem, IMPDAHMA project manager at Oxford Instruments, said: 'Enabling the full characterisation of HTS materials and coils at high field by the IMPDAHMA consortium will help accelerate the exploitation of HTS materials in innovative magnet applications.
'As HTS materials properties and manufacturing processes continue to be improved, there will be scope for even higher magnetic fields.'
