Researchers at the MagLab are making discoveries today that will lead to the technologies of tomorrow. Whether a member of one of our robust in-house research groups or one of the nearly 1,400 outside scientists who do experiments here annually, MagLab researchers understand how high magnetic fields lead to making big discoveries.
Seeking the most powerful magnetic fields on Earth, scientists and engineers from across the world come to the MagLab to explore promising new materials, solve energy challenges and grow our understanding of living things. This kind of research has played a critical role in developing new technologies used every day – from electric lights and computers to motors, plastics, high-speed trains and MRI. Find out more by exploring our research initiatives, learning about our interdisciplinary research, or digging deeper into the hundreds of publications generated annually by MagLab researchers.
Research Initiatives
MATERIALS
Scientists use our magnets to explore semiconductors, superconductors, newly-grown crystals, buckyballs and materials from the natural world — research that reveals the secret workings of materials and empowers us to develop new technologies.
ENERGY
Scientists here are working to optimize petroleum refining, advance potential bio-fuels such as pine needles and algae, and fundamentally change the way we store and deliver energy by developing better batteries.
LIFE
With the world’s strongest MRI magnet, scientists here study everything from living animals to individual cells, from proteins to disease-fighting molecules found in plants and animals — work that could improve treatment of AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
Latest Science Highlight
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Understanding How Fungi Build Their Cell Walls for Protection
25 January 2022
Scientists have used high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to reveal how fungal pathogens use carbohydrates and proteins to build their cell walls (the protective layers outside of the cell). These findings will guide the development of novel antifungal drugs that target the cell wall molecules to combat life-threatening diseases caused by invasive fungal infections.
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Magnetostriction in AlFe2B2 at 25 T Measured by X-Ray Diffraction
25 January 2022
Using X-ray diffraction, scientists can now detect atoms themselves moving further apart or closer together in high magnetic fields, giving science a crystal clear view of nature.
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Clues About Unconventional Superconductivity From High-Field Hall Data
13 December 2021
In everyday life, phase transitions - like when water boils and turns into steam or freezes and becomes ice - are caused by changes in temperature. Here, very high magnetic fields are used to reveal a quantum phase transition not caused by temperature, but instead driven by quantum mechanics upon changing the concentration of electrons, work that could hold critical clues that explain high-temperature superconductivity.
Featured Publications
Magnetostriction in AlFe2B2 at 25 T Measured by X-Ray Diffraction, S. Sharma, et al., Physical Review Materials, 5, 064409 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Understanding How Fungi Build Their Cell Walls for Protection, A. Chakraborty, et al., Nature Communications, 12, 6346 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Quantum Rivals in Nitride Materials, P. Dang, et al., Science Advances, 7 (8), eabf1388 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Nb3Sn films via a novel hot-bronze method for compact accelerators, W. K. Withanage, et al., Superconductor Science and Technology, 34 (6), 06LT01 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Unusual high-field state discovered in mineral atacamite, L. Heinze, et al., Physical Review Letters, 126 (20), 207201 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Sunlight converts plastics into diverse chemical mixtures, A. N. Walsh, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol., 55 (18), 12383–12392 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Absence of Weak-Links in Bi-2212 Round Wire, Y. Oz, et al., Phys. Rev. Materials, 5(7), 074803 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Advanced Microscopy for Better Nanostructural Insights in Bi-2212 Round Wires, T.A. Oloye, et al., Supercond. Sci. Technol., 34035018 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Restoration of breathing after drug overdose and spinal cord injuries, M.D. Sunshine, et al., Communications Biology, 4 (1), 1-15 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Linear-in temperature resistivity from isotropic Planckian scattering rate, G. Grissonnanche, et al., Nature, 595, 667-672 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Testing the Critical Current of High-Temperature-Superconducting REBCO Cables Using a Superconducting Transformer, H. Yu, et al., IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 30 (4), 5500204 (2020), See Science Highlight or Read online