The Dresden high-magnetic field laboratory – overview and first results

Abstract

It is planned to build a 50 MJ pulsed field laboratory at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (near Dresden) to obtain magnetic fields up to 100 T with 10 ms pulse duration. This facility would provide the appealing possibility to have access to Zeeman energies in the energy range of the infrared free electron lasers (5–250 μm) that is now under construction at the radiation source ELBE in Rossendorf. For gaining experience in the construction and operation of pulsed magnets, a smaller pulsed field laboratory was established at the Institute for Solid State Physics and Materials Research Dresden (IFW Dresden) in 1999. The laboratory includes pulse magnets with peak fields up to 50 T in a 24 mm bore and a pulse length of about 11 ms, and a 40 T long pulse magnet with a 24 mm bore and a pulse length of about 130 ms. The coils are energized by a 1 MJ, 10 kV capacitor bank with thyristor switches. The bank is subdivided into four identical and independent units. A particular advantage is the possibility to reverse the polarity of the magnetic field pulse by means of a novel circuit with industrial circuit breakers. The design of the power supply is explained in detail. High-precision measurements of magnetization and magnetotransport in the temperature range of 1.5–300 K have been performed.