[natural sound]
Miles O’Brien: That “thrum” you hear
is the sound of science at work.
It’s coming from magnets --
some of the most powerful in the world.
Greg Boebinger: So, we are indeed
a world class facility.
There are many different kinds of magnets,
super-conducting magnets,
big resistive electromagnets, pulsed magnets.
Miles O’Brien: With support from the National
Science Foundation, the National High Magnetic Field
Laboratory, MagLab, as it is called,
is a mecca for ground-breaking research
across scientific disciplines.
Greg Boebinger: So, I direct a very unique
laboratory to bring high magnetic fields
to researchers who come to our lab every year
to study important research topics
in the areas of materials, of energy and of life.
Miles O’Brien: Now I know
when you hear “magnet,”
you’re thinking about something like this,
but the magnets here are of a different kind altogether -
millions of times more powerful
than anything you would stick on your fridge.
Greg Boebinger: You should think of
a high-field magnet,
a powerful magnet as a research tool,
much like a high-powered laser is being used by scientists,
much like an atom smasher.
We’re a research tool.
Miles O’Brien: Analytical chemist Amy McKenna
is a staff scientist
working on the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Magnet.
She’s all about oil,
how to refine it more efficiently
and how to better clean it up when it spills.
Amy McKenna: Every crude oil in the world
is unique.
It is a function of the temperature,
the pressure and the organisms that died
and created that mixture.
Miles O’Brien: Petroleum is what’s called
a “complex mixture.”
Think on the order of 40 thousand
different chemical compounds in every drop.
Amy McKenna: We analyze the compounds
in crude oils
and dissolved organic matter in water,
and we measure their mass very accurately.
Miles O’Brien: To do it, this magnet functions
as a highly precise molecular scale.
Amy McKenna: In order to measure
molecular weight,
you need these types of scales, that’s what we do here
is we measure a fundamental property of molecules
very accurately to six decimals places.
Miles O’Brien: In another part of the MagLab,
physicist Cory Dean is using the “D-C Field Facility”
to research the properties
of a relatively newly-isolated material called graphene.
It’s a flat sheet of carbon molecules
laid out in a chicken wire-shaped pattern.
Cory Dean: It’s unique in almost
every metric that you can define.
It’s been called the strongest material.
It’s the thinnest conductor.
It has one of the best thermal transport properties.
Miles O’Brien: It’s so unusual, in fact,
that physicists are still trying to figure out
the basics of how it works.
Cory Dean: One of the things
that we want to know is when we put this device
in the presence of a very large magnetic field,
combined with very low temperatures,
both of these things are critical,
can we access what we call
the quantum properties of this material?
Miles O’Brien: That level of understanding
is needed before engineers
can really start making things out of graphene.
Cory Dean: We can discover
for example new electronic behaviors,
which to a physicist might be very interesting,
but to an engineer means
that you can design a brand new material
that maybe solves a problem that is facing challenges
for like how to make a better computer for example.
Miles O’Brien: Dean is one of nearly
two thousand scientists from institutions around the world
who use the MagLab facilities every year.
Magnetic field testing can benefit many fields of research:
petroleum and materials for sure,
but also human health and medicine,
batteries, biofuels, and much more.
Greg Boebinger: So, we know how to bring
in newcomers to high magnetic field research,
help to make their experiment successful,
so I can then publish their results
and get the information they’re seeking.
Miles O’Brien: Visiting scientists don’t even
need to have experience working with magnets.
All they need to bring is a worthy project.
Experts like Amy McKenna are on hand to help.
Greg Boebinger: That’s the crux of a successful
user-facility. You’ve got to have the magnets,
you’ve got to have the instrumentation,
but most of all you’ve got to have the talented people.
Miles O’Brien: Putting power of high
magnetic fields to work
breaking through the boundaries of scientific knowledge.
For Science Nation, I’m Miles O’Brien.