flux magazine, issue 7 by National MagLab

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 editor’s note

We’ve Got the Goodies

Stories about Mag Lab people, what they’re doing, and their cool tools Welcome to the seventh issue of Flux, a magazine designed to explore the staggering variety of research, instrumentation and outreach here at the Magnet Lab.

energy research for the future

Why is scientist Jackie Jarvis examining a small vial of burnt tree waste? See “Fueling the Future,” on page 8, for more about the Mag Lab’s cleanenergy research.

No doubt you’ve read and watched plenty of stories about the energy crunch facing our country and our world. Each time you gas up, you get an instant pocketbook reminder. Because we’re all stakeholders in our planet’s dwindling resources, we’ve showcased the story “Fueling the Future,” which explains some of the critical clean-energy research underway at the lab — research that might just help solve our energy problems one day. To further show you how, even in small ways, our scientists are perpetually brainstorming novel approaches to scientific dilemmas, don’t miss “A Noisy Conundrum.” In it, you’ll discover how a rural fifth-grade teacher and a college student helped overcome a high-tech roadblock using the ancient power of the sun. We want to show you a few of our cool tools, too. In “A Glimpse into the Atomic” on page 28, you’ll learn about an incredibly powerful (and brand spanking new) microscope that allows scientists to see individual atoms. In “Seeing the Light,” you’ll learn why and how scientists use lasers to uncover the hidden potential of materials. But our lab is also about the people. Get to know several of the behind-the-scenes players in “Workers of the Lab Unite!” and in our scientist spotlight on physicist Albert Migliori. Don’t miss our tale of the “Big Magnet Wedding,” either; it’s always nice to see such “attractive” people get hitched.

Contents Mag Lab research

Cover Feature

08 F ueling the Future Cutting-edge research into cleanenergy sources is underway at the Mag Lab.

photo essay

04 A Noisy Conundrum How a physicist, a teacher, and a student solved a high-tech physics problem using the sun’s ancient power.

02 11 13 17

Big Magnet Wedding

Liz & Bert’s magnetic moment on the 45 T

Scientist Spotlight

Q + A with Al Migliori, Physicist and LANL Fellow

Seeing the Light

How lasers fit into Mag Lab research

28 32 33

A Glimpse into the Atomic

ew microscope gives scientists N super vision

18 W orkers of the Lab Unite! Some of the most vital Mag Lab employees aren’t scientists at all.

Social Science Science Cafés promote scientific discussion in Tallahassee

what is this?

Last Look: What does the inside of the Florida Split Coil Magnet look like?

Magnet Fact or Fiction

Is the Magnet Lab involved in weapons research? Connect with us Find us on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube or visit magnet.fsu.edu

30 It’s Large and It’s Charged Still confused? We reveal the answer.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 / Summer 2011 Magnet Lab Director Gregory S. Boebinger Associate Lab Director Brian Fairhurst

Mag Lab news

Big Magnet Wedding

Interim Director of Public Affairs Amy W. Mast Flux Editor Kathleen Laufenberg Graphic Designer Lizette Vernon Photographer Dave Barfield

About Flux is a twice-yearly publication dedicated to exploring the research, magnet technology and science outreach conducted at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s three campuses in Florida and New Mexico. The Magnet Lab is a national user facility that provides state of the art research resources for magnet-related research in all areas of science and engineering. The Magnet Lab is supported by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida. It is operated by Florida State University, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Subscriptions Want to get some extra copies for a classroom or a favorite science buff? There are two ways:

Lynn Mayfield performs the ceremony as Liz & Bert stand together over the 45 tesla magnet.

u Contact Amy Mast at:

winters@magnet.fsu.edu

v Subscribe online at:

www.magnet.fsu.edu/ mediacenter/publications/ subscribe.aspx

Contact The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive Tallahassee, FL 32310 (850) 644-0311 www.magnet.fsu.edu

BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG It started as a joke. But when Liz Prettner and Bert Green said their “I dos” atop the world’s most powerful magnet, they were smiling, not laughing. “It was very, very sweet,” said Lynn Mayfield, a Mag Lab

employee and the notary public who married the young scientists in December on the lab’s two-story, 45-tesla hybrid magnet, which holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s strongest magnet. “Her husband loves that 45 T, and Liz uses it to do her research, so it seemed like a good fit. ”

Although the young couple didn’t know it, magnet coordinator John Pucci — who has the final say-so on much of what goes on at the mighty 45 T — directed a security camera on the couple during the brief ceremony. Later, he surprised them with a video of it. “Nobody else in the world

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 has ever gotten married on the 45 tesla, so it certainly was unusual,” Pucci said. “Hopefully, it made their honeymoon even more magnetic.”

Cool ... and attractive Although it was the first time anyone has tied the knot on the 45 T, it was actually the lab’s second wedding. The first nuptial was a December event too, but 15 years earlier. Physicist YongJie Wang (Jan. 16, 1957 — Dec. 12, 2009) and his bride, XiaoWei Wang, said their vows on a Saturday in December 1995, in the lab’s sunny atrium lobby. It was a formal affair: The bride wore a long, white gown and made a dramatic entrance by descending the glass-and-steel staircase from the second floor into the airy lobby. After the Wangs’ late-afternoon ceremony, the 30-orso people in the wedding party went out for an elaborate Chinese dinner, recalled Mag Lab physicist Scott Hannahs, who attended the celebration. Not so formal was the tryst on the big 45 T. Liz, a 26-year-old graduate student in physics, and Bert, a 32-year-old graduate student in scientific computing, wore blue jeans and matching Magnet Lab T-shirts that bear a pun involving cryogenics (the study of how matter

behaves at very low temperatures) and magnets. The front of the T-shirt depicts something commonly seen in a cryo lab: a dewar (pronounced DOO-er), a large container that holds liquid helium, the coldest liquid on the planet. Beside the dewar is the statement: “I’m cool…”. On the back of the shirt is a picture of the 45 T itself, and the words: “And I’m attractive!” The T-shirt and jeans wedding didn’t start out to be so casual, though. “I was going to get a nice dress,” Liz said. “But the stress of everything was starting to freak her out,” Bert finished. So what happened was a bit of wedding-decision déjà vu. In the beginning, the entire idea to get hitched on the 45 T came after they visited a few wedding sites, but didn’t find anything quite right. That’s when Liz joked that they should just get married on the 45 T — and Bert fell in love with the idea. This time, Liz joked that maybe they ought to just wear their jeans and cryogenics Tshirts — and again, Bert embraced the brilliance of his fiancée’s suggestion. Now the stage was set.

Shhhhh Once they’d decided the where and what-to-wear,

Bert said, “I wanted to get it all done as quickly as possible.” He worried that Liz might change her mind about getting married on the big magnet and want some place more conventional — or that someone would pop up and tell them they couldn’t do it. He knew that on Dec. 13, a Monday, the 45 T would not be in use, making it safe to be on top of the 35-ton behemoth. So he pressed their plan into action. Two witnesses (fellow grad students Laurel Winter and Tiglet Besara), a notary (Ms. Mayfield) and 10 minutes (from noon to 12:10 p.m.) was all it took. Most of the other 350 people working at the lab that day hadn’t a clue about the ceremony. Several months after the fact, Bert still loves the whole idea of their unique 45 T wedding, and so does Liz — although her husband is clearly the more enthusiastic. “I really get a huge kick out of it,” he allowed. Was there any downside to getting hitched on the world’s most powerful magnet? “Neither of our moms were particularly thrilled,” Bert said, noting that both found out after the fact. “And there was no cake!” said Pucci, whose impromptu wedding video did, however, make both moms smile from ear-to-ear.

The 45 tesla Hybrid Magnet Superconducting Magnet 11.5 T Resistive Magnet 33.5 T

WHat’s a tesla?

In addition to being a neatsounding word, a tesla (abbreviated as T) is a unit of measurement. It tells you how powerful a magnetic field is. A refrigerator magnet is 0.001 T. A junkyard magnet that picks up a car is about 2 T. A hospital MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine is 2 to 3 T. Now imagine how powerful a 45 T magnetic field must be!

Why is it called a “hybrid magnet?

Because it’s actually 2 magnets in one! The 45 T is made of an 11.5 T superconducting magnet and a 33.5 T resistive magnet. You can watch a short video on the 45 T by visiting our YouTube channel (Search “NHMFL”) Mag Lab Tour: The Hybrid Magnet http://youtu.be/6wH1kq7gfuU

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

Physicist Irinel Chiorescu beside his lab’s pit magnet; on the left is an encased rack of batteries attached by cable to the solar panels on the Mag Lab’s roof.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 Mag Lab research

A Noisy Conundrum Scientist taps the sun’s ancient power for cutting-edge research BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

ometimes, you have to go back to go forward. Sounds strange, but it’s what one Mag Lab physicist did when he harnessed the sun’s primordial power to solve a perplexing, high-tech problem. As helpers, he had two unlikely candidates: a rural elementary-school teacher and a college undergrad. 05

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

t the heart of scientist Irinel Chiorescu’s dilemma — and his research — is something so teeny, you can’t even see it under a microscope: a photon, an elusive bundle of radiant energy. Chiorescu (Key-oh-REZ-coo) studies this mysterious unit of energy in hopes of creating the first quantum computer. “In our research projects, we are measuring the energy of one single photon — and the energy of one single photon is very, very small,” said Chiorescu, who earned his advanced degrees from France’s Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble.

Small signal, big catch

Most days, you can find the tall, Romanian researcher hovered over his “pit magnet” — a 200-pound, refrigeratorsized machine sunk right into the floor. His experiments are all done inside of it, so everything in his lab happens around the man-made magnet. “We are studying very small signals,” said Chiorescu, an associate physics professor at Florida State University. “We need to amplify the signal so that it’s easily readable and something we can measure.” To do that, he uses special electronic amplifiers to crank up the volume. But there’s a catch: When he amps up the sound of the weak signals, he also increases something he doesn’t want: electrical noise. The electricity that powers our homes contains noise that — even though we can’t hear it — can wreak havoc in super-sensitive experiments.

The plan

To reduce this unwanted buzz, scientists often turn to battery power. Chiorescu, however, wanted to try solar-powered batteries. He hoped that, in addition to being environmentally friendly, solar power

Jodie Martin, a fifth-grade teacher in Wakulla County, uses a model she and others created during her summer internship at the Mag Lab to show several of her Medart Elementary School students how solar energy can be collected.

would prove to be ultra-clean (i.e. noisefree), too. To see if his idea would work, the FSU Physics Department awarded him a $7,500 grant. “The project scientifically is very interesting and very important,” said Mark Riley, the chair of FSU’s Physics Department. “New ways of utilizing solar power should be encouraged.” No sooner had Chiorescu received the grant than two eager assistants arrived: a fifth-grade teacher and a University of California at Berkeley undergraduate. Together, they brainstormed a plan of action: Create a model, then have Mag Lab staff install solar panels, build a battery console and wire the system.

It’s about challenges

Chiorescu’s industrial lab — with its electronic consoles, large liquid-helium containers and a wall featuring hand-written equations and diagrams — is a vastly different space from Jodie Martin’s bright classroom full of student art at Medart Elementary School in Crawfordville. But Martin wanted to challenge herself over the summer break. So she applied to the Mag Lab’s Research Experiences for Teachers, a summer program that pairs K-12 teachers with scientists for an intensive, sixweek plunge into real-world science. And a challenge it was, she said. “I did learn a lot about solar energy, but I also learned so much more. I learned more about the (periodic table of ) ele-

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 ments, and now I can talk about silicon and how it’s used in solar panels and how it allows electrons to move more easily.” Chiorescu also mentored undergraduate Akshita Dutta, a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley and one of 22 students selected for the lab’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer program. The two women put their heads together and came up with a working model of a solar-energy storage system — which Martin later kept to use with her fifth-graders. Having three sons at home has shown her that the model definitely captures kids’ attention. “Every one of my three boys couldn’t resist playing with it,” she said. “They’ve all had to take it outside and see how much sun they could store with it.”

Unexpected bonuses

But Martin gained other insights at the lab, too. “I felt the frustration a student feels trying to learn something new. There were times when I got very, very frustrated and really just wanted to give up.” She struggled with advanced math calculations until she convinced herself she couldn’t do them. Chiorescu, however, insisted she could. “He said, ‘oh, students often make this mistake. I’m not going to help you because I know that you can figure it out.’” That same evening, the worried Martin surprised herself — by doing the math. “The next day, I thanked him. After I got it figured out, I was so confident in myself, I felt like I could do anything!” She wants the memory of that exhilaration to guide her with her own students when she sees them struggling. Dutta, a chemical-engineering major,

Scientist Irinel Chiorescu, elementary-school teacher Jodie Martin and Berkeley undergraduate Akshita Dutta, beside the three solar panels installed on the Mag Lab’s roof.

likewise came away from her lab internship with an unexpected bonus. At Chiorescu’s urging, she wrote a paper, “Solar Panels as a Source of Noise-Free Power,” and presented it at her university’s undergraduate research symposium. “It was a fantastic experience,” Dutta said. “It motivated me to try and apply what I learn in my classes to the real world.”

Up and running

After the teacher-student team completed its work, it was time for Mag Lab staff — Andy Powell, an electronics engineer, Richard Brooks, the maintenance and construction superintendent, and others — to jump in and make the project a reality. They built a portable, electronic console to house eight batteries (each about 50

pounds and a bit bigger than a car battery). They mounted three solar panels on the roof above Chiorescu’s lab, and then wired the system to the magnet. Fortunately, the grant covered all the material expenses. “The physics department has a history of encouraging outstanding young faculty, and this is an example of us doing that,” said Riley, the department’s chair. “Irinel is doing fabulous work out at the Mag Lab.” In December, Chiorescu began using the solar-energy system to power his amplifiers and the data-acquisition stage of his experiments. Ask him about the outcome today, and he smiles. “The signal is 50 times better now,” the professor said. “I am very happy with the results.”

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

Cover Feature

FUELING THE FUTURE From Superman materials to tree-bark gasoline, the Mag Lab is on the front line of energy research BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

pinning straw into gold? Bottling nature’s genies? Discovering materials with Superman powers? Sure enough. It’s all in a day’s work at the Magnet Lab, where scientists seek new sources of green energy as well as novel ways to store it. “There’s a tremendous need for clean energy today,” said physicist and Magnet Lab director Greg Boebinger. “But as soon as you start talking about renewable sources like the wind and the sun, the big issue becomes storage. “When the sun shines, you collect its energy. When the wind blows, you collect its energy. But then you have to find a way to store the energy until you need it days or months later. Many scientists who visit the MagLab are working on that problem.” Analytical chemists, including assistant scholar-scientist Amy McKenna, are also investigating how to conserve oil supplies by manufacturing new liquid fuels. Their goal, simply put, is to spin straw into gold. “We want to take agricultural waste, stuff that would be thrown away or mulched or composted,” McKenna said, “and turn it into fuel.” Other scientists, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Albert Migliori, want to create an artificial fuel that burns more cleanly than petroleum by using the energy of the sun and wind to run a

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 chemical reaction. If Migliori and others can find a way to bottle these potent genies, the discovery could radically increase our ability to convert nature’s own power into something we can use instead of oil. Physicists and engineers are also on the prowl for Superman materials known as superconductors: metals, alloys and ceramics that allow electricity to flow with no resistance or loss of energy. Finding the right superconducting material could make our current power grid much more efficient. It could even open up energy avenues we haven’t yet imagined.

The search for “unobtainium” In the popular sci-fi movie “Avatar,” an Earth company traveled at great expense to an alien planet to mine its “unobtainium.” This fictional ore was Hollywood’s depiction of the holy grail of superconductors: a material able to conduct staggering amounts of electricity without resistance and energy loss. That’s not the case with today’s national power grid. “We waste 10 percent of our power heating up the power lines,” Boebinger said. “If we could find a way to transmit electrical energy without doing that, we would realize a huge savings.” Our country’s energy grid operates much like your kitchen toaster. Both have wires that heat up as electricity flows through them. Electrons cause

the heat as they zoom through the wires, bumping into other electrons and atoms. These atomic collisions cause friction, and that friction generates heat. In your toaster, the red-hot wires nicely brown your bread. In our energy grid, the wires’ heat just toasts the air and is wasted. But that’s not how superconducting wires work. In superconductors, the electrons flow without collisions. Scientists already use superconducting materials to transmit energy — but there’s one big catch. In order for them to work, today’s superconductors must be kept super cold, as in minus 347 degrees Fahrenheit and even colder! To keep superconductors that cold, they’re bathed in liquid helium, the coldest liquid on earth. It’s a complicated, costly process that takes up a huge amount of space. So Mag Lab researchers keep looking for a superconductor that won’t need to be kept so crazy cold. Their ultimate goal: Find a room-temperature superconductor — just like the “unobtainium” in Avatar. It would be a revolutionary discovery, worthy of a Nobel Prize. “It’s impossible to predict when that might happen,” Boebinger allowed. “But I don’t see why it couldn’t happen someday. In the meantime, there are plenty of technological breakthroughs that we can predict using materials that are already discovered.”

(For more on superconductivity, see page 10.)

A case of sun to go, please While material scientists are hunting for “unobtainium,” other researchers are experimenting with ways to capture the immense energy of the wind and sun. With petroleum and coal, storage isn’t much of a problem. A lump of coal sits ready for you to burn it. The gas in your car waits for you to turn the key. “Liquid fuels are an incredibly efficient, cost-effective way to store energy,” Boebinger said. “Ultimately, the challenge is to try to find an inexpensive energy alternative to petroleum.” Why is petroleum such a terrific fuel? Because it holds more energy than anything except nuclear power. “There are 100,000 different molecules in one drop of oil, and there are hundreds of thousands of different molecules in petroleum,” he said. “Basically, nature has made every possible organic compound in oil, and at some level, it’s really a shame we burn the stuff because it’s the most complete collection of molecules that we have. But right now, all we know how to do is set a match to it and harness the energy.” The sun is also an incredible source of energy — but storing it is a problem. “We know how to make electricity from sunlight, and we know how to make elec-

tricity from wind, but we don’t have the technology to store anywhere near what we need to match our energy usage in the United States from these clean energy sources.” Physicist Migliori is spearheading a group of researchers at LANL, Florida State University and the University of Florida to brainstorm ways to do that. He wants to make synthetic liquid fuel from sunlight and wind that can be used in fuel cells — devices that change chemicals into electricity without pollution. Fuel cells contain different materials than batter-

“There’s a tremendous need for clean energy today. But as soon as you start talking about renewable sources like the wind and the sun, the big issue becomes storage.” — Greg Boebinger, Mag Lab Director

ies and are designed to never wear out or go dead. “The technology to change electrical-energy storage,” Migliori said, “is on the horizon.” Unlike today’s fuels cells, however, the ones Migliori envisions will not use hydrogen — a dangerous gas that’s hard to store. Instead, they will use an artificial gasoline. To develop a process to make such a synthetic fuel, he and others are

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 gasoline and 10- to 15-percent second-generation biofuel. Jarvis gets her research samples from forestry services. After they burn scrap tree bark, branch pieces and leaves, they send samples of the gooey remains in glass vials to Jarvis. The syrupy samples have a strong burnt odor, so the smell of smoldering fire often wafts through her tidy lab.

“If you understand the molecular nature of something, you can begin to predict how it will behave ...” — Amy Mckenna, Mag Lab scientist

Scientist Jackie Jarvis examines a small vial of burnt tree waste: the leaves, bark and other stuff left over from lumber and forestry work. Could this charred waste be turned into a biofuel?

using the lab’s powerful magnets to study the physics and chemistry at the interface between solids and liquids.

Trash or treasure? In McKenna’s and graduate-research student Jackie Jarvis’s lab, it’s all about transformation. In order to make our petroleum reserves go as far as possible, they want to morph tree waste and peanut shells into biofuels. Fuels made from food, such as the ethanol in your car’s gasoline, are called firstgeneration biofuels. Non-food fuels, such as tree waste and peanut hulls, are second-generation biofuels. The Mag Lab hopes to help create a fuel mixture that’s 85- to 90-percent

To test a sample, Jarvis puts a smidgeon of the burnt goo inside a giant ion-cyclotron resonance magnet. The machine gives her a molecule-by-molecule readout of what’s in it. Such an analysis conveys how well the sample could blend with petroleum. Before using the ICR machine, researchers could identify only about 300 compounds. Now, Jarvis said, she has identified as many as 20,000 compounds in one tiny sample. “If you understand the molecular nature of something, you can begin to predict how it will behave in the refinery,” McKenna said. “That’s important, because refinery systems were built for petroleum, but now we’ve got this different product we want to put in them.” Many of the biofuel samples contain a lot of oxygen, she added, which will corrode the refinery’s machinery. The lab’s goal is to find an agricultural waste that could be added to petroleum in the beginning stage of the refining process. Something that wouldn’t be too destructive to the refinery equipment — or, later, in your car’s engine. So far, the perfect biofuel has remained just beyond their grasp. But that’s part of the challenge of spinning straw into gold.

Superconductors

The path of least resistance

Regular electrical wires lose some of the current that flows through them. You can feel that loss as heat coming off the wires. This happens because the electrons that carry the current resist moving in an orderly fashion. Like rowdy kids in a lunch line, they bump into each other and into the electrons that make up the wire. But in superconducting wire, the electrons flow with no resistance, no collisions, and no loss of electricity. Why does that happen? Scientists don’t have the complete answer — but they do know that it hinges on temperature. Really frigid temperatures. They know that when some materials are cooled down to insanely cold temperatures, they suddenly superconduct — i.e., electricity flows through them with no resistance. The catch is the cold: You’ve got to keep the material at minus 347 degrees Fahrenheit or much colder. And keeping a material that cold is expensive and complicated. So researchers keep experimenting, searching for a material they could easily and cheaply make into a wire that would conduct a lot of electricity without resistance at room temperature. If they do, wow! It would trigger an energy revolution.

— Kathleen Laufenberg

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 Scientist spotlight

Q+A with Albert Migliori BY AMY MAST

lbert Migliori is a condensed matter physicist. Condensed matter physicists work to learn more about the properties of solid materials and many electronic materials. Simply put, it’s the study of stuff — what it’s made of, what it can do, how it can be manipulated. This field of research produced the transistor, which has led to all the integrated circuits in televisions, telephones and cars. It’s led to magnetic materials that make high-efficiency motors and generators that in turn make possible hybrid and all-electric cars, highefficiency wind turbines, and much much more. Condensed matter physicists often work light years away from applying their knowledge of “stuff” to the inventions and innovations mentioned above, but without the measurements they make, those innovations would be difficult or impossible. The majority of scientists at the Magnet Lab’s three campuses are physicists. Al, why does this kind of work appeal to you? The whole aspect of physics is that it’s really the only discipline in which you get the truth about how the world actually functions. I’d hate not to know that. I guess saying that could start a lot of fights, but it’s true. Physics has built a collection of irreducible laws that are inviolate and tested by everything we know to do. They tell you how the world functions at the most fundamental levels.

How’d you get interested in science? I’m from the Lower West Side of Manhattan. Our dinner table was an ironing board for a little while. My father was a wholesale grocer, and my mother wrote advertising copy for one of the big ad agencies. So my father was starting out a new business, and we had nothing. One consequence of that is that we fixed everything. Even when I was six years old, I can remember my father sitting down with me and rewiring the lamps, and I think that that started things off. Living in that part of New York at that time, which was the '50s , there were war and electronic surplus stores downtown on Chamber Street and Canal Street. That was the time when transistors were first becoming available. You couldn’t even buy a transistor radio when I was in grade school – they didn’t exist. But then, all of a sudden you could go down to the surplus store and you could buy a bucket of transistors that somebody made that had the caps removed, and you could just make things out of them. They didn’t last very long, and they had light sensitivity, but there was all this junk you could buy for nothing down there to play with. Another consequence of that, growing up in New York, is that those science magnet high schools were just stunning. The one I went to was just spectacular.

TIMELINE 1945 Born in New York City 1968 R eceives B.S. from Carnegie Mellon U. 1973 Receives Ph.D. from U. of Illinois,Urbana Champaign 1973 S tarts post-doc at Los Alamos National Lab 1976 S tarts employment at Los Alamos 1991 Develops resonant ultrasound spectroscopy 1999 Becomes a fellow of the American Physical Society

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

What is resonant ultrasound spectroscopy?

When many objects are struck, they ring, exactly like a bell, producing tones that Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy can use to determine important mechanical properties of materials, and to detect flaws in manufactured components, a boon for both the research community and industrial safety standards.

Eureka!

Migliori holds over two dozen patents.

Why did you decide to work at Los Alamos? I had spent some time in the Army between graduate school and Los Alamos. I was in Georgia training second lieutenants to run battlefield communications. In May of ’73 I had orders to ship to Vietnam, but the war ended and they told us to go home. I knew much about Livermore National Lab, and I interviewed both there and at Los Alamos. I wanted to come to Los Alamos, because I’d read all these books about New Mexico. I didn’t know anything then and I was fearless about my career. I had a full-time permanent staff offer at Livermore, but during the interview process they never took me out of the public area. The whole lab was nuclearweapon secure, so I couldn’t figure out what it was they wanted me to do there. At the end of the day, the personnel director said, “What do you think?” and I said, “Don’t bother offering me a job. I don’t know what I’m going to do here, so I don’t want to work here.” They couldn’t believe it, and I turned it down before I got an offer from Los Alamos. I had not thought that through. But I took a postdoc position at LANL because I thought it was more exciting, and I was right. If you’re in science, working at Los Alamos is a pretty storied thing. What’s a regular day like? When I began here, I would be in the laboratory trying to put together an experiment, execute the measurements, and analyze the results dusk to dawn. As I progressed through the years, I’ve built up a pretty good sense of taste for physics problems. This is a basic research place, and a typical day changes over the years. I make measurements, rather than attempt to interpret them in some detail. As the years passed, I found myself working as part of an organizing team that attacked various science and measurement problems. One of the things that’s been a theme throughout my career is developing techniques to measure things that are really hard to measure. The reason I’m a fellow at Los Alamos National Lab is because I developed a technique called resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (see sidebar). It’s been very enjoyable acting as a mentor for younger scientists, and I’ve grown more in the role of helping younger people think extremely clearly about

what it is they wanted to do and helping to identify really good physics problems. How do you react when someone thinks your idea is dumb? Sometimes, people don’t like things because they don’t understand them. We’ve had that a little bit with trying to spool up energy research at Los Alamos. I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that the thinking is clear— mine and others. How has basic research changed in the 37 years you’ve been at Los Alamos? The absolute biggest change has to do with personal computers. Sometimes I joke that PCs don’t help you do things faster. They just make things possible that weren’t possible before. One of the things that’s changed is the ability to analyze accurately large amounts of data. The technique that I’m known for took an old IBM eight hours to do the computations to extract the numbers we wanted from the measurements. Now, it takes three-tenths of a second on my laptop. The other aspect with computers is that they let you make mistakes really fast. I think the personal computer as a data acquisition and analysis tool is the biggest single change. What else has changed? Well, the people certainly haven’t. Every single year for the past 37 years, there’s been a panic over where funding will come from for next year. After a while, you don’t worry about it anymore. There is more formality about safety than there was back in those days, but that’s all in the right direction. I think people were a little crazy 30 years ago and they’re not so much anymore. People might claim it’s risk averse, but it’s not. I think people are just as willing to take risks in science, but not safety. What would you have done with your life if you couldn’t have been a physicist? If I couldn’t be a physicist, I’d do… physics. I’d do whatever I could to be as close to that as possible. I’d probably turn to electrical engineering and turn that into a physics career.

Mag Lab research

How lasers fit into Mag Lab research

asers enjoy a weird duality in our culture. They’re used in many eminently practical everyday applications — document printers, countless surgeries, stonecutting, restoring old paintings, police speed traps, automotive assembly, DVD players… we could go on for a really, really long time. But lasers are also the stuff of alien weapons in sci-fi movies, various narrowly avoided James Bond deaths, failed DARPA initiatives, and a host of other nebulous, cinematic weirdnesses that can cloud their common, practical applications. At the Magnet Lab, we use lasers for some pretty out-there experiments, with the end goal of learning more about the world (and maybe some ways to improve components of those practical things listed above, too). Our researchers are poised

to expand our laser research on several fronts, and it’s a great time to learn more about light (because that’s all lasers are, after all) as a tool for scientific discovery.

Why bother with lasers?

Data, that’s why. Most of the lab’s scientists study solid matter — its potential, its limitations, and how it behaves in extreme environments. Optics spectroscopy is a set of techniques that provide interesting information for physicists. The lab conducts magnetic field research because magnetic fields interact with matter inside atoms’ charges, and charged particles inside that matter interact with the magnetic field in kind. Put another way, we use a magnetic field to push on an interesting bit of matter, the matter pushes back, we measure that interaction, and presto: science!

By Amy Mast

L.A.S.E.R.

The term laser is an acronym that stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

the first laser

Theodore Maiman built the world’s first laser in 1960 using a small ruby rod to amplify the light particles and focus them into a beam.

The view inside Cell 3, one of the protected rooms where high-powered lasers are operated.

What do lasers have to do with that?

They emit photons (photons = particles of light). Light itself also interacts with charged particles, so when researchers add it to their experiment, they can figure out more about what’s happening using information gleaned from the particles of light. Because light’s such a powerful force, understanding these interactions means understanding what’s going on inside a material at the most basic level.

How do you get a laser beam inside a magnet (and back out)?

Your typical research magnet looks like a steel-clad whiskey barrel, and it’s designed for

maximum magnetic field, not maximum access. Experimental samples, as well as the experiment’s measurement equipment, are all crammed down into the bore — a central opening in the top of the magnet body that’s typically smaller than a pingpong ball. With the top of a working magnet stuffed full of measurement equipment and the experimental sample, how do you get a laser in there too? You go in through the bottom. After you’ve shot your laser beam in there, you’ve got to retrieve, collect and analyze the light you’ve used, because the way the light changes is the source of your data. Crazy, right? To get your light back, there are two things you

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 can typically do, says Steve McGill, a lab scientist whose research often contains an optics component. “The first is to collect the light reflected from a sample. With reflection, you have to get the light in, and you have to get the light back out. If the sample isn’t perfectly flat and level, the light will still come in and hit it fine, but when it comes back, it will do so at an angle and bounce off the side of the tube. If it’s even a little bit slanted like that, you have to pull your sample out and reconfigure everything.” The other option is to insert fiber optic cable, which carries light into the magnet, and then another piece to get your data out. The fiber works as a conduit for light, so you can bend it and move it around corners and you don’t have to worry about the careful positioning. Fiber optic cable has several significant limitations — most importantly, it’s incapable of carrying some of the data scientists are looking for.

So what form does laser data take, anyway?

As explained above, light is changed by its interaction with the sample in the magnetic field. A scientist examines the properties of the light when it comes back, and how it’s changed tells you something about the sample. It’s like reading a mystery story backwards — you know what’s happened, but a researcher must figure out why and how. There’s been a long history of people studying how light interacts with samples, and scientists have come up with different kinds of experiments that make sense of those changes. There are almost as many types of experiments as there are types of scientists, but we’ll focus on a few common things they measure. “One of the things I like to do is enumerate all the different aspects of light usable in this kind of experiment — you build out your experiment based on this menu of different properties,” McGill explains. Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum — a vast array of energy that travels in different wavelengths. Radio and TV signals, microwaves,

X-rays, gamma rays and visible light all have their own widely varying signature wavelengths. Radio waves, for example, are a kilometer long, while microwaves are only a couple of millimeters. When he’s planning an experiment, McGill selects a laser of a certain frequency— this means how often a wave of light repeats. Light’s photons are packets of energy, and that energy is proportional to the frequency of the light. The higher the frequency of the light, the more energy it has. Polarization is the term for the orientation of a laser’s wavelength — whether our wave is oscillating horizontally, vertically or, circularly (which can in turn be clockwise or counterclockwise!). Polarization’s interaction with a magnetic field makes for some interesting, highly varied data, and this is the meat of scientists’ optical investigations. These kinds of experiments can show McGill and others how much a sample has been magnetized, among other interesting changes. To give a couple of examples in many experimental options, if a sample’s opaque, the light that hits the sample and bounces back can be measured for magnetooptical Kerr effect — the effect being the change to that light. If the sample is translucent or transparent, you can measure the Faraday effect instead. While it’s the same measure of how the light has changed, you’re just doing it with the light that passed through the sample.

SAFETY FIRST

When working with lasers, scientists wear special goggles designed to block out the harmful light.

How do you throw a laser beam away when you’re done with it?

You can’t just put high-energy beams of light in the recycling at the end of the day, so a few kinds of ingeniously simple devices have been invented to dispose of already-used laser beams properly. McGill’s laser beams are small, so they’re sent into a small box called a beam stop or a “black hole.” The interior of the box is set at many different angles that bounce the light around and don’t let it escape, so the beam is lost. Another common device used to “throw away” laser beams is a box of razor blades, stacked blade side out. The thin profile of the blades split the beam up into smaller parts that are scattered be-

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

Mag lab lasers

The Mag Lab has 15 lasers at its Tallahassee facility.

tween the blades and do not emerge.

Are the lab’s lasers visible to the naked eye?

The movie image of lasers we’re used to seeing, wherein colored beams of light rocket through the air, burning holes in metal walls and deserving villains alike, is precisely the kind of thing we try to avoid at the Magnet Lab. Our lasers are powerful and potentially blinding, so they’re operated in a tightly controlled, safety-conscious environment. “We have lasers that are continuous, unbroken beams, and we have pulsed lasers, which are chopped up bits of interrupted light. With pulsed light, you’re dumping all the energy into those little chops, and even a small amount of that very high energy can hurt you irreparably. You don’t want to make a mistake with those,” says McGill. Though the beams actually are sometimes red, green, or blue like in the movies, most visitors and non-optics lab employees will never see one. Even scientists don’t see the laser beams very often if everything’s going as it should. “Laser beams look cool,” McGill explains, “but photons interact with dust, smoke and other particles in the air to produce visible light, and in an experimental environment, that kind of stuff would be ruining your data.” Depending on the type of experiment he’s running, McGill does see the light when it hits the small window or lens it may pass through or bounce from.

The next generation of optics research?

Two very big — and very different — projects are the focus of the lab’s future optics research. The lab’s new Split Florida Helix magnet (pictured on page 33) will change the way scientists conduct optics research by offering four ports on the side of the magnet’s body — at the very places where high magnetic fields are normally trying to rip the magnet apart. This feat of engineering will allow a more pure experiment for McGill and his colleagues, allowing direct access to the high magnetic field without the fuss of bouncing a light sample into the magnet’s bore or the limitations of

fiber optic cable. To learn more about the Split Florida Helix, visit magnet.fsu.edu and search “Extreme Makeover” for a non-scientist explanation, or “Split Florida Helix” for the harder stuff. The other optics project the Magnet Lab is eyeing is even more ambitious. “Big Light” is a lab initiative to construct a fourth-generation, freeelectron laser light source alongside the lab’s existing world-leading high magnetic field user facility here at Florida State University. Pairing this unique light source with high magnetic fields will open up a new experimental regime by spanning the challenging region of the electromagnetic spectrum between the highest frequencies currently employed in electronics/cell phone technology, and the visible part of the spectrum. Bridging this so-called “terahertz gap” with a bigger, brighter and better light source designed with experimental science in mind will enable researchers to probe nature in completely new ways. The addition of Big Light to the nation’s research arsenal will provide transformational research opportunities in disciplines spanning condensed matter physics, materials science, chemistry, biochemistry, biology and medicine, including: • The study of new materials that could one day lead to faster and smaller electronics, and possibly even quantum computing. • Research that could move fuel cell technology forward by learning more about chemical reactions – and how to control them. • Research that could lead to cleaner and more efficient refining of fossil fuels and the reduction of carbon dioxide. • The study of superconductors that could change the way electricity is transmitted and stored. • Research into the structure and functions of biologically important molecules that could lead to insights into understanding disease processes and drug discovery. Want more details about Big Light? Search “Free Electron Laser” at magnet.fsu.edu.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 magnet fact or fiction

Can magnets be used as weapons? BY AMY MAST Magnet Lab magnets — particularly our resistive magnets — can look a little sinister, a little spidery, a little weaponlike. And our massive, gray-walled Tallahassee facility can feel decidedly military in parts of the building. Add to that our huge power supply and our unrivalled magnetic field strength, and it’s no surprise that many visitors ask us if we have a weapons development team.

Do you folks do any weapons research at the Magnet Lab?

We don’t do any weapons research — or any classified research — here at the Magnet Lab. Our questions are focused on very basic scientific principles, not bringing products (or weapons) into production. Basic researchers ask the first questions about interesting materials or processes, and then, using that knowledge, applied scientists and engineers build the machines, develop the drugs and invent the cool electronics.

That said, we do have some pretty talented engineers, but they’re building magnets solely for research purposes. Why no classified research? For one, the lines of inquiry our scientists are pursuing don’t demand it. Also, conducting classified research would put tremendous restrictions on they way we communicate, who we could collaborate with, and how we could function. It would make the lab’s work a lot more bureaucratic, and perhaps hinder the amazing discoveries and research infrastructure we’re coming up with all the time.

Can magnets be used as weapons?

Magnets really aren’t the most effective weapons around. Lab employees work next to them all the time and the fields themselves are simply not dangerous. Resistive magnets are the size of a compact car, so they’re not portable, and they require

way too much power and water to keep them cool. The amount of energy and power you’d need to create a magnetic field that could actually pull stuff out of people’s hands would be SO huge that you’d be much better off using that energy to make traditional weapons. (Inventors, however, are undeterred; at the lab, we get lots of cool plans and drawings in the mail and via fax machine. And who knows? Maybe one of them will be right.)

What about as a launcher for weapons?

There IS really cool research out there using magnets as launchers, but we leave that stuff up to the U.S. Navy. (Search electromagnetic rail gun on YouTube to check

this out.) Rail guns work with a huge burst of electromagnetic energy all at once, like the Magnet Lab’s pulsed magnets. While we work to nondestructively contain the energy we create with magnet pulses, launchers use the force to propel small objects. Factoid: The Magnet Lab DID work with the Navy from 2000-2003, but not on weapons; they collaborated on a project with FSU Center for Advanced Power Systems to develop all-electric power systems for submarines. Thanks to Scott Hannahs for answering this round of Magnet Fact or Fiction. To read more questions like these, search “fact or fiction” at magnet.fsu.edu.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 photo essay

Workers of the lab Unite! The Magnet Lab’s business is high-field magnets: beautiful, complex and endlessly interesting tools used to answer basic research questions in several disciplines. Our scientists publish their own work, and enable the research of more than a thousand visitors who travel to Tallahassee, Gainesville and Los Alamos to use our magnet systems.

THey keep the place running

Top to bottom, left to right: Diana DeBoer Sean Coyne John Pucci Willie Nixon Phillip Hill and Angela Sutton

These magnets have to be built, maintained and funded — and they require efficient, adaptable support staff as projects change. Some of the most vital Mag Lab employees aren’t scientists at all, but the people who enable the business of research, and all the unexpected hurdles that business entails. Maintenance crews, machinists, electricians, administrators and program coordinators are vital to the Magnet Lab’s success; take a moment and meet a few! By Dave Barfield and Amy Mast

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

1998 (13 years).

Position

Assistant to the Director.

Favorite thing about your job

Interaction with a diversity of people.

Most important thing you’ve learned working here

I believe everything I learn is important.

Weirdest assignment you’ve had at work

So many weird assignments that I wouldn’t know which one to choose plus many shouldn’t be discussed!

Diana DeBoer

Want to speak with lab Director Greg Boebinger (pictured in the background)? Diana can work you in. In addition to running the administrative portion of the director’s responsibilities, Diana’s also a crazy cat lady in the best sense of the word, working extensively with local animal rescue groups to provide homes for strays.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

2005 (6 years).

Position

Facilities Engineer. I am a fixer.

Favorite thing about your job

Working with staff and solving problems that allow someone to conduct or improve their experiment.

Most important thing you’ve learned working here

Sean Coyne Broken toilets, landscaping, ant invasions, construction of new lab spaces… Sean Coyne has done it all. He’s also a talented woodworker who was recently granted a patent for a safe, compact crib designed for women’s and homeless shelters (and he’s got the weirdest resumé ever: key grip, cowboy, ranch hand…)

People do not like change in their colors at first. We have changed the color of floor tiles, carpet and walls, and often I get comments about the change, with two-thirds disliking it. I ask people to give it a few weeks. Most come back positive.

Weirdest assignment you’ve had at work

Working with a contractor who, whenever I turned my back, would try to shortchange us. This particular contractor caught our building on fire and had the gumption to say it was not his employee — a guy with a flaming torch — who started it, but our fault.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

1993 (18 years).

Position

Head of Cryogenic & 45 T Hybrid Magnet Operations.

Favorite thing about your job

Having the opportunity to make friends with people from all over the world.

Most important thing you’ve learned working here

That everything, everyday, is important.

Weirdest assignment you’ve had at work

There is no way I’m telling...

john pucci

Every problem, every repair, and every tale of workplace hijinks is stored in John’s head. He’s the unofficial, and walking, 45 T Hybrid encyclopedia. The 45’s cryo system is John’s baby, and he’s always willing to stop and explain how it works to the curious public.

“I’m responsible for the operations and maintenance of the 45 T Hybrid magnet and the lab’s cryogenic systems, including the distribution of liquid helium to users. I’m currently involved with the design, procurement and assembly of the first major upgrade to the lab’s helium cryogenic and gas recovery systems since the early '90s. The commissioning and testing of the system components will continue through the next year and will eventually support the cryo operations of the 45 T magnet, Magnet Science and Technology’s material test facility and the future Series Connected Hybrid magnet, along with increased liquid helium production to meet this decade’s user demand.”

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

1994 (17 years).

Position

Welder. I do pipe fitting and welding for the lab.

Favorite thing about your job

The variety of assignments. I really enjoy welding and I get to work on a lot of different types of projects.

Most important thing you’ve learned working here To be prepared for the unexpected.

Weirdest assignment you’ve had at work

Willie Nixon

The sweeper magnet. We had a large hunk of stainless steel that had to be welded and kept cool at the same time. I had to weld an inch at a time, letting the metal cool down after every inch.

Willie Nixon’s most recent task has been to weld the pipes for the newly upgraded helium-recovery system, an ongoing project that promises to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the lab’s existing, outdated one. For the project, Nixon welded — and tested — over a quarter-mile of pipe. 23

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

2008 (3 years).

Position

I do the shipping and receiving for the Magnet Lab.

Favorite thing about your job

I enjoy thinking about all the different places I ship packages to. I have shipped to most of the continents.

Most important thing youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned working here

I have learned that much that is done at the lab has to be fabricated here. Here ideas are made real.

Weirdest assignment youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had at work

I helped lay a pipe (along with another 20-30 people) that was several hundred feet long. This was part of the new helium storage project.

Phillip Hill Got mail? Phil Hill and his package cart are familiar to anyone at the lab who sends or receives packages. Since magnets are constructed from literally thousands of parts, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of packages, some one-ofa-kind or worth many thousands of dollars. In fact, we at the lab get so much delicate stuff in the mail that UPS comes to pick up extra packing peanuts from us!

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

At the Mag Lab since

2004 (7 Years).

Position

Director, Environmental Health and Safety.

Favorite thing about your job

I enjoy helping people discover safer ways to do their job.

Most important thing you’ve learned working here

How fascinating and creative researchers can be with their research and safety.

Weirdest assignment you’ve had at work

Too many to choose from, especially during Open House. Scientists seem to have an affinity for smashing things and blowing things up. It is my job to try and figure out how they can do this safely.

angela sutton Love doing experiments in flip-flops, walking under ladders, and putting your pasta salad in a fridge filled with dangerous chemicals? Then steer clear of industrial health and safety engineer Angela Sutton, who performs the lab’s safety inspections and educates scientists and staff on proper use of everything from defibrillators to fume hoods.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 technology

A Glimpse into the Atomic BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

magine you could pick a superpower for yourself. Would you fly? Breathe underwater? Read minds? Scientists at the Magnet Lab now have a more pragmatic — but no less stunning — superpower of their own. With a $3.2-million microscope installed this year, they’ve gained the ability to see a material’s atomic structure. “One researcher told me that looking through this kind of microscope is like standing on the earth and being able to see a dime on the surface of the moon,” said Tom Isbell, a director in the Transmission Electron Microscope Division at JEOL, the Japanese company that built it. The lab’s latest tool is one of about a dozen such atomicresolution microscopes in the world, according to JEOL, and the second such JEOL micro-

scope in the United States when it was purchased. Mag Lab scientist Yan Xin, of the lab’s Magnet Science and Technology group, was part of a Florida State University team that spent three years reviewing microscopes before making the purchase. “I can see individual atoms,” Xin said. “The image really pops out. It’s beautiful.”

Super Vision

In middle and high school, you probably peered through a tabletop microscope that magnified something roughly 1,000 times. If you looked through this state-of-the-art imaging tool — which weighs about 5,000 pounds — you would see an object magnified 40- to 100-million times its actual size. “Imagine that you are nearsighted, and you see everything blurry,” Xin said, “and

Using a thermos (or dewar) of liquid nitrogen, researcher Yi-Feng Su fills up the small cooling tank that is part of the lab’s new, room-sized, atomic-resolution microscope.

finally you get a pair of glasses that allow you to see all the details so clearly, and see the things you never saw before.” The FSU Research Foundation paid for the new instrument, which uses electrons to image objects. Scientists will use it to examine materials, including superconductors that could power the next generation of high-field magnets. Superconducting materials allow electricity to flow

without resistance, or friction — but they work only at extremely low temperatures (minus 347 degrees Fahrenheit max!). These materials can also contain flaws. Some flaws can actually be beneficial, while others are harmful. With the new microscope, Xin and others can see these atomic flaws and report them. As engineers gain more insight into the structure of superconductors, they can design better magnets and

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

Scientist Yan Xin examines materials placed inside the new atomic-resolution microscope using desk controls on both sides of the eyepiece.

expand the uses for these amazing materials.

Super Sensitive

The JEOL microscope’s powerful imaging abilities also make it extremely sensitive to everyday sounds and temperature changes. Simply talking around it while it’s in use could distort the results, so engineers built a special room exclusively for it. Tall, 4-foot-by-8-foot radiant-cooling panels hang like white-

metal murals on the walls. The Swiss-made panels keep the 330-square-foot room at an even 74 degrees. “The temperature only varies by plus or minus 0.1 degree F,” said John Kynoch, a mechanical engineer who helped design the room. “This is the best temperature control at the Magnet Lab.” Builders also superinsulated the room and installed a separate air conditioner. “It is basically a room in-

side a room,” Kynoch said. “The room was tested before and after for sound, vibration, electromagnetic fields and temperature control. We even had an FSU garbage truck run through the parking lot as a worst-case test of noise and vibration.” Initially, researchers from various departments at FSU and the Florida A&M University-FSU College of Engineering will use the microscope. But because there are so few of

these powerful instruments available, other scientists are welcome to apply to use it by contacting Xin. Scientists unable to travel to the Magnet Lab will be able to remotely access the microscope from their own laboratories. The lab’s latest imaging tool “will be a major boost for materials research at FSU,” Xin said. “It will put FSU at the forefront of materials characterization.”

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 what is this?

We’ve got the Power:

The 1,400 Megawatt Generator at Los Alamos National Lab BY AMY MAST

hen we give tours here at the Tallahassee branch of the Magnet Lab, we like to tell our guests that our magnets pack a high-powered punch. At 56 megawatts, we may use between 7 and 10 percent of the City of Tallahassee’s power capacity on a given day. Our eight transformers required partial removal of some walls to install. Pretty impressive, right? Power-wise, that’s absolute peanuts compared to the Mag Lab’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) facility, which makes use of a generator capable of an astonishing 1,430 megawatts — enough to keep three-quarters of New Mexico running on a given day. The generator requires its own (massive!) building and weighs in at a staggering 480,000 pounds — as much as eight full-size, fully-loaded fire trucks. This thing’s got a 26,000-gallon oil tank alone — enough to fill 3 ½ tanker trucks. So what do we use it for? Well, it’s a power station specifically for the world’s most powerful pulsed magnet — a type of resistive magnet that reaches crazy-high fields, but only for a couple of seconds. Scientists use this 85-tesla magnet (and the 60-tesla magnet that sits next to it) to con-

duct basic research at even more extreme fields than those possible in Tallahassee. As you can see in the picture below, left, the generator’s centerpiece is a giant, spinning rotor. When it’s turned on, the rotor moves at a rate of 1,600 rpm. From warmup to flipping the switch (“firing the shot” in LANL lingo), a magnet pulse can be delivered in about 20 minutes, but the highest part of the pulse lasts only about 15-20 milliseconds. Believe it or not, that’s enough time for condensed matter physicists to get the data they need.

Where do you buy one of these?

The lab’s generator is actually a handme-down twice over. It hails from Hartsfield, Tennessee, where it was one of several originally constructed for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear power program. After Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island accident in 1979, demand for nuclear power plummeted and in 1988, Los Alamos brought the generator to New Mexico. Moving 480,000 pounds — even in pieces — isn’t easy, and the generator traveled by barge, road and rail as it made its way across the country. Several bridges on the route had to be reinforced to accommodate it.

heavy lifting

This picture shows the top of the three-story generator, which sits on massive stilts. Why elevate such a huge machine? The force it generates is so intense that it actually shakes the bedrock, and would eventually destroy the foundation of the building if it weren’t elevated. Even with precautions in place, the generator moves the bedrock underneath enough that sensitive experiments across the street have been disrupted when it fires up.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

There’s a man right there!

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7 education + outreach

This issue’s featured program is...

Science Café Want a little conversation and beer with your science? The Magnet Lab’s Science Café connects working scientists with the general public to explore practical topics (such as environmental and health issues) and more esoteric ones (the nature of time). Held at Ray’s Steel City Saloon each month from September-May, the events aren’t lectures; they employ a conversational approach that encourages asking questions of the featured speaker.

ABOVE

Science Café posters from fall 2010 & spring 2011.

There are lots of ways to learn more about the Mag Lab. Check out the variety of programming and events below, and be sure to visit magnet.fsu.edu for more.

Other Magnet Lab Events

Classroom outreach

Your school or group can schedule a visit from CIRL anytime. Just search “classroom outreach” at magnet.fsu. edu. Outreach features a variety of topics and hands-on activities — check it out!

Science Café is organized by the Magnet Lab’s Center for Integrating Research and Learning (CIRL) and Public Affairs. For more information, search “Science Café” on our website or contact Roxanne Hughes at hughes@ magnet.fsu.edu.

Science Nights

Kids and their families get nontraditional access to lab outreach (and grad students, the opportunity to conduct it) during Science Nights, which take place at local schools and attract up to 250 parents and students.

SciGirls and Summer Camps

Middle-school mentorship/camps and SciGirls camps (for middle- and high-school girls) ensure that the lab provides attention-getting, immersive programming at the very age many children begin losing interest in science.

Magnet Mystery Hour

This quarterly lecture is held at the Magnet Lab and includes a tour of the facility.

Monthly Public Tours

Swing by at 11:30 a.m. on the third Wednesday of any month to tour the Mag Lab — no appointment necessary.

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 7

last look

At left

An overhead view of the magnet shows its shiny metal guts.

above right

The Florida Split Coil Magnet is a new,

The port, or window in the middle of the magnet allows for laser light and other experimental variables to enter.

custom-built, $2.5-million instrument with the potential to revolutionize research in optics, nanoscience and semiconductors. The lab’s latest magnet is expected to reach 25 tesla. (“Tesla” is a measurement of the strength of a magnetic field; 1 tesla is equal to 20,000 times the Earth’s magnetic field.) The split magnet features four, large elliptical ports (at top right) that enable scientists direct access to the magnet’s central experimental space, or bore (large photo) while maintaining a high magnetic field. The large ports open 50 percent of the total space available for experiments, a capability scientists have long desired. The National Science Foundation funded the project. To learn more, search “split magnet” at magnet.fsu.edu.

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PA I D Tallahassee, FL Permit No. 55

Issue 7 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive Tallahassee, FL 32310-3706 (850) 644-0311 (850) 644-8350

magnet.fsu.edu

on the cover

Wind and solar energy, biofuels and underground superconducting cable are all technologies that could fuel the future. Read about their developments on page 8 inside this issue of Flux.

Flux is supported by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida

mini market