China Begins Construction of the World’s Strongest Electromagnet Facility in Wuhan on September 27.
The new electromagnet will be located at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. (Photo: SCMP).
The upgraded high magnetic field facility at Huazhong University of Science and Technology will generate a short but extremely powerful magnetic field of 110 Tesla, over two million times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field. The current record for an electromagnet field is 100 Tesla, held by the facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA. The strongest electromagnet field that China can currently produce is 70 Tesla.
China holds the record for the strongest stable magnetic field on Earth. In August, the Magnetic Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei, Anhui, announced the creation of a stable magnetic field of 45.22 Tesla for research requiring long operating times.
The new facility in China will take five years to build and cost $276 million, according to Science and Technology Daily. Many researchers are ready to conduct experiments with the new electromagnet field, including engineers working on the “high-energy electromagnetic project”, scientists developing superconducting and semiconductor materials, and experts looking to explore biological secrets in humans.
Electromagnetic fields are designed to allow scientists to observe material structures, the behavior of subatomic particles, and life processes under extreme conditions. Experts say that such scientific observations cannot occur under normal conditions. By utilizing the electromagnetic field, scholars hope to achieve breakthroughs in various fields, from carbon-based computer chips, stealth technology to high-energy microwave weapons and life-saving drugs. The project team shared their ambition to transform the facility to attract research talent from around the globe.
Building the new magnet comes with many challenges and risks. According to the research team, workers need to wrap metal wire around the magnet while wearing protective suits for several hours in a confined environment filled with toxic gases. Generating a strong magnetic field is also quite difficult. The magnet requires a generator capable of producing over one gigawatt of electricity and special materials that can absorb heat and shock created by the electromagnetic pulses.
Conducting experiments with the magnetic field is equally dangerous. In 2018, a research group in Japan created the strongest magnetic field ever recorded at 1,200 Tesla. However, this brief experiment was so powerful that it destroyed the magnet and blew the laboratory door off its hinges.
