Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Magnetic Field Researchers Target 100-Tesla Goal: New World Record 100.75 Tesla set During Six-Experiment Pulse

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory's biggest magnet facility have just met the grand challenge of producing magnetic fields in excess of 100 tesla while conducting six different experiments. The hundred-tesla level is roughly equivalent to 2 million times Earth's magnetic field.
Chuck Mielke (center), director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory's Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos, celebrates with colleagues after instrument readouts confirm a world-record magnetic pulse. "Now, at 100 tesla, we can focusing our efforts to get multiple user experiments completed in single magnet runs on the big magnets since they are so oversubscribed. More than a dozen people are working together to make this happen here at the Laboratory," said Mielke.
The ability to create pulses of extremely high magnetic fields nondestructively provides researchers with an unprecedented tool for studying a range of scientific questions: from how materials behave under the influence of very high magnetic fields, to research into the quantum behavior of phase transitions in solids.
Researchers can explore extremes of low temperature and high magnetic field, which will contribute to our understanding of superconductivity, magnetic-field-induced phase transitions, and so-called quantum critical points, in which small changes in materials properties at very low temperature have dramatic effects on physical behavior. 

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Nädalalehte "SIRP" liikunud teadusjutte

Panen siia kokku mõningad lingid nädalalehes "Sirp" üllitatud aimetekstidele:
värskeim on teaduse hindamise jutt, mõeldud raamiks ja selgituseks Jüri Alliku kokkuvõttele eesti teadlaste edukusele ESI andmebaasis esimeses 2012. a. augustinumbris.

Jan Hendrik Schöni komeedilendu füüsikateaduses tähistas jutt 2012. a. märtsis.

Kvaasikristallide eest Nobeli keemiapreemia andmist Dan Shechtmanile tutvustasin 2011. a. oktoobris sellise looga.