Chinese scientists have developed a high magnetic field split-coil superconducting magnet device to provide, if working closely with the X-ray full scattering device, a magnetic field environment for studying the change of material's micro-crystal structure under high magnetic field.

The device was designed and produced by CHEN Wenge and his team at High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL). It was developed with a goal of room temperature bore of 41 mm and the central magnetic field strength up to 10 Tesla, as well as providing a 13mm width wedge slit within 2*85 degrees. And it has recently passed the acceptance test by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

To achieve the design requirements, lots of technical difficulties had to be overcome.

The superconducting magnet is composed of four coaxial superconducting coils, including one pair of outer superconducting coils and one pair of inner superconducting coils, which are continuously wound by NbTi and Nb3Sn superconducting strands respectively.

However, it was really difficult to reach 10T magnetic field at the center of the wedge slit by using NbTi superconducting coil alone. So the scientists induced Nb3Sn superconducting coil to make NbTi and Nb3Sn pairs. During the process, the development of high field Nb3Sn densely wound superconducting coil pairs was one of the technical difficulties.

The high magnetic field generated huge stress between the two pairs of split-coil superconducting magnets (104kg magnitude), challenging both the design and the fabrication of supporting structures which were limited by space size.

The team's success in the device development marks a significant progress in the development of the split-coil superconducting magnet with high magnetic field along CHMFL's history.

According to the research team, the special configuration of the split-coil superconducting magnet device would be used with the general powder X-ray diffractometer. And the new device may assist developing high field split-coil superconducting magnet for synchrotron radiation and neutron light source.

The success may also lay the foundation for the development of high field split-coil superconducting magnet for synchrotron radiation and neutron light source.