Scientists at Florida State University have created the world’s most powerful continuous field magnet magnet. It’s capable of generating a 45.5-tesla field. Chief Materials Scientist David Larbalestier explains what that could mean for the future.
"You could use power transmission without any loss using yttrium barium copper oxide power cables. You could make transformers, you could make motors, you could make other interesting devices such as fault current limiters out of these," explained Larbalestier.
He says he doesn’t expect to see this anytime soon because the materials are very expensive. But says if the materials processing people can create it at an affordable cost, it could be used for more than just demonstration.
*Correction: The original version of this story noted the magnet as a superconducting magnent. It is a continuous field magnent.
