Towards a magnetic field of 100 Tesla : inauguration of a new hall for experiments at the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés de Toulouse (LNCMI)

Thursday, October 15, 2015

The technology of non destructive, long duration pulsed magnetic field belongs to the Toulouse scientific community since 1965, where this technology is still used for fundamental researches, mainly in Solid State Physics. The National Pulsed Magnetic Field facility settled at INSA in 1975 produced for the first time a magnetic pulse of a duration of 0.1 s culminating at 60 Tesla (1988). In the 90's, the actual laboratory started in preparation, it became LNCMI in 2009, and merged with the Grenoble LCMI. The LNCMI is one of the founder member of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory-EMFL- ( ).

The pulsed magnetic field is the unique way to reach higher and higher fields, provided that one can make use of highly conductive wires which present a sufficient mechanical strength, avoiding the explosion of the coil and the huge consecutive damages (for the case of non-destructive pulses).

In fact, in the frame of the race for higher and higher magnetic pulses, it was imperative to increase the securisation of the actual installation. So, last October the 15th, it has been inaugurated an extension of the actual building intended to improve the user's security. This new hall have six wells within which at the bottom are put down the cryostats containing the coil : each well is itself placed into a shielded experimental box.

This project has been co-funded by the EU (FEDER), the Région Midi-Pyrénées, and the State.

The route for non destructive 100 Tesla is now open. During July 2015, the LNCMI tested a coil reaching 90.6 Tesla for a pulse duration of 9 millisecond.

            In keeping with the Toulouse speciality of long duration pulse, this impulsion of a duration of « only » 9 ms constitutes a world record in term of pulse duration. « We are generating fields just under the maximum fields obtained in Dresden of Los Alamos (USA), but our magnetic pulses are longer, which allows more accurate measurements » says Geert Rikken, director of the LNCMI.           

Contact :



PHOTO : Cryostat containing its pulsed coil inside its shooting well. CNRS Photo credit : CNRS Photothèque/ Sébastien Chastenet