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Watch this video to see how direct current works.

An up-close view of a favorite Open House demo, carbo-loaded with information on how the pneumatic potato launcher works.

Capacitors can store electrical energy and discharge it quickly, powering things like flash bulbs and starter motors.

DC motors make things like appliances and power tools work by converting electrical energy to mechanical energy. Find out how.

EMF, or electromotive force, refers to the voltage created by a battery or by a changing magnetic field. Counter EMF, also called Back EMF, is a related phenomenon that we will illustrate in this animation.

Conventional automobiles burn gasoline in an internal combustion engine and convert that energy into motion. But first a spark is needed to ignite the fuel mixture. This animation shows how a 12-volt battery generates the high voltage required to create such a discharge.

Take a journey into the center of a one of our high field magnets, a 41-tesla resistive magnet, to see how it's made, how it works, and how it's used to study materials at the MagLab.

Used originally to charge particles in atomic accelerators, Van de Graaff generators are now used mostly to educate students about electrostatics. See how they generate the static electricity that can make your hair stand on end.

Take a journey into the center of a one of our magnets to watch an experiment on graphene, one of many things scientists study at the MagLab.

Used originally to charge particles in atomic accelerators, Van de Graaff generators are now used mostly to educate students about electrostatics. See how they generate the static electricity that can make your hair stand on end.

Conventional automobiles burn gasoline in an internal combustion engine and convert that energy into motion. But first a spark is needed to ignite the fuel mixture. This animation shows how a 12-volt battery generates the high voltage required to create such a discharge.

Capacitors can store electrical energy and discharge it quickly, powering things like flash bulbs and starter motors.

EMF, or electromotive force, refers to the voltage created by a battery or by a changing magnetic field. Counter EMF, also called Back EMF, is a related phenomenon that we will illustrate in this animation.

Every time you plug something into the electricity in your house, you are utilizing the power of alternating current (AC.)

A capacitor is similar to a battery, but a few key differences make them crucial additions to many machines.

This simple direct current (DC) motor has been created by pairing a permanent magnet and an electromagnet. The permanent magnet is called a stator because it doesn’t move. The electromagnet is a spinning coil of wire and is often called the rotor. A battery is connected to the circuit, and a magnetic field is created when current flows through the wire. That magnetic field interacts with the field of the permanent magnet, and the coil turns until the two fields are aligned.

The Van de Graaff generator is a popular tool for teaching the principles of electrostatics. You might remember it as the thing that made your hair stand on end. It’s now largely used for educational purposes, but it was invented by Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1930 to power early particle accelerators.

Just a year after electromagnetism was discovered, the great scientist Michael Faraday figured out how to turn it into motion.

Italian scientist Alessandro Volta was the first to recognize key principles of electrochemistry, and applied those principles to the creation of the first battery.

This “magneto-electric machine” was the first to turn motion into electricity.

Transformers are devices that transfer a voltage from one circuit to another circuit via induction.

Arc lamps were the first type of electric light, so brilliant the lamps were used for lighthouses and street lights.

Start your engines and learn about the ignition coil, a key to operating your car.

Though simple by today's standards, the early electrostatic generators were a great milestone in humankind's understanding of electricity.

The legendary Lord Kelvin made electricity from water with his water dropper.

A galvanometer detects and measures small amounts of current in an electrical circuit.

In 1855, a French physicist created a device that illustrated how eddy currents work.

Sir Oliver Lodge's experiment demonstrating the first tunable radio receiver was an important stepping stone on the path toward the invention of a practical radio.

Like resistance, reactance slows down an electrical current. This phenomenon occurs only in AC circuits.

Two heads — or even three — are better than one when it comes to understanding how tape recorders harness electromagnetic induction.

Magnetic core memory was developed in the late 1940s and 1950s, and remained the primary way in which early computers read, wrote and stored data until RAM came along in the 1970s.

If your knowledge of magnets ends with posting a to-do list on the fridge, add this to the list: Learn more about magnets! You can start here with a straightforward rundown of magnet types, uses and strengths, explained in a way that will help make the facts stick.

Fear not, right-brained friends: Science and art intersect in plenty of places, and this is one of them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lends a hand as we explore cryogenics – how to get things fantastically frigid – and the fascinating element that makes it all possible.

Long before his name began gracing kitchen appliances, Bosch made improvements to the magneto that had far-reaching improvements in the automobile industry.

American inventor Lee De Forest was a pioneer of radio and motion pictures.

The discovery of radio waves, which was widely seen as confirmation of James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and paved the way for numerous advances in communication technology, was made by German physicist Heinrich Hertz.

Karl Jansky, who discovered extraterrestrial radio waves while investigating possible sources of interference in shortwave radio communications across the Atlantic for Bell Laboratories, is often known as the father of radio astronomy.

The integrated circuit fueled the rise of microelectronics in the latter half of the twentieth century and paved the way for the Information Age. An American engineer, Jack Kilby, invented the integrated circuit in 1958, shortly after he began working at Texas Instruments.

Siegmund Loewe was a German engineer and businessman that developed vacuum tube forerunners of the modern integrated circuit.

A discovery by Hans Christian Ørsted forever changed the way scientists think about electricity and magnetism.

Claude Shannon was a mathematician and electrical engineer whose work underlies modern information theory and helped instigate the digital revolution.

William Bradford Shockley was head of the solid-state physics team at Bell Labs that developed the first point-contact transistor, which he quickly followed up with the invention of the more advanced junction transistor.

In 1866, the research of Werner von Siemens would lead to his discovery of the dynamo electric principle that paved the way for the large-scale generation of electricity through mechanical means.

Awarded more than 100 patents over the course of his lifetime, Nikola Tesla was a man of considerable genius and vision.

The Scottish instrument maker and inventor James Watt had a tremendous impact on the shape of modern society.

Long before the iPhone, the iPod or even the Mac, there was the Apple.

Fire lighted the night for many centuries before humans discovered new ways to illuminate their lives.

Acoustics, variable resistance and allegations of foul play contribute to the exciting story of the invention of the telephone.

To understand a bubble chamber, picture the long, white streak an airplane leaves in its wake.

As more and more American households acquired telephones, the pressure was on to create a better cable to accommodate the increasing demand. Engineers Lloyd Espenschied and Herman Affel answered the call.

Odd though it seems today, when Thomas Davenport was selling one of the first electric motors way back in the 1830s, nobody was buying.

Although it never quite measured up to expectations, the Edison battery paved the way for the modern alkaline battery.

From the Stone Age to today, the search is constantly underway for better, more efficient ways to cook food. Reflecting many of the advances in science and technology, the electric range has become a popular choice for homes and businesses.

Otto von Guericke's electrostatic machine evolved into increasingly improved instruments in the hands of later scientists. In the early 1700s, an Englishman named Francis Hauksbee designed his own electrostatic generator, a feat stemming from his studies of mercury.

Few inventions have shaped technology as much as the electric motor, but the very first version — the Faraday motor — didn't look anything like the modern motor.

Compared to incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps last longer, require less energy and produce less heat, advantages resulting from the different way in which they generate light.

Several years before the telegraph created by American inventor Samuel Morse revolutionized communications, two German scientists built their own functional telegraph.

Counting alpha particles was tedious and time-consuming work, until Hans Geiger came up with a device that did the job automatically.

For centuries, the electroscope was one of the most popular instruments used by scientists to study electricity. Abraham Bennet first described this version in 1787.

The first hydroelectric power plant, known as the Vulcan Street Plant, was powered by the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.

American inventor Vladimir Zworykin, the “father of television," conceived two components key to that invention: the iconoscope and the kinescope.

Because they could store significant amounts of charge, Leyden jars allowed scientists to experiment with electricity in a way never before possible.

The railroad industry began in the frontier days, magnetic levitation has moved it squarely into the space age.

At the dawn of the computer age, magnetic core memory helped make data storage possible, and showed surprising staying power in a field where components are constantly being replaced by new and improved products.

The magneto helped fire up the first generation of automobiles.

The Earth, the moon, the stars and just about everything in between has a magnetic field, and scientists use magnetometers when they need to know the strength of those fields.

Although they have applications at the highest levels of scientific research, magnetron tubes are used every day by non-scientists who just want to heat their food in a hurry.

A number of distinguished scientists had a hand in the discovery of "wireless telegraphy," but it was the work done by Guglielmo Marconi that is credited with providing the basis of radio as we know it today.

The man most commonly associated with the telegraph, Samuel Morse, did not invent the communications tool. But he developed it, commercialized it and invented the famous code for it that bears his name.

Named in honor of Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, Denmark’s first satellite has been observing and mapping the magnetic field of the Earth.

From the auto shop to the doctor's office, the oscilloscope is an important diagnostic tool.

Many heads, hands and hearts contributed to the development of this lifesaving device.

Although not as celebrated as many other scientific inventions, the smoothing iron has its own rich history of development stretching all the way from 400 B.C. to the present.

Applying discoveries Michael Faraday had made a few decades earlier, William Stanley designed the first commercial transformer for Westinghouse in 1886.

Few inventions have affected human history as much as the steam engine. Without it, there would have been no locomotives, no steamers and no Industrial Revolution.

The main figure behind the first transatlantic telegraph knew very little about the science or engineering behind it, but was convinced that with it a fortune could be made.

In the modern world, virtually everyone is familiar with electricity as an accessible, essential form of energy.

English mathematician Peter Barlow devised an instrument in 1822 that built on advances from earlier in the century, including the invention of the battery, to create a very early kind of electric motor.

A galvanometer is an instrument that can detect and measure small amounts of current in an electrical circuit. 

The rheostat was developed in the mid-1800s by Charles Wheatstone as a means of varying resistance in a circuit.

Scientists take important steps toward a fuller understanding of electricity, as well as some fruitful missteps, including an elaborate but incorrect theory on animal magnetism that sets the stage for a groundbreaking invention.

The first telegraphs are constructed and Michael Faraday produces much of his brilliant and enduring research into electricity and magnetism, inventing the first primitive transformer and generator.

The Industrial Revolution is in full force, Gramme invents his dynamo and James Clerk Maxwell formulates his series of equations on electrodynamics.

Scientists explore new energy sources, the World Wide Web spins a vast network and nanotechnology is born.

Compasses are actually very simple. If you ever forget which way is north, follow these steps to make one yourself.

What do you get when you mix a battery, a bit of copper wire and a nail? One of the most important forces in science. Try it yourself and let the force be with you!

Directions for teaching a hands-on lesson on compasses in science class and in other subjects.

Power up this hands-on lesson about electric motors.

Allow students' creativity to flow in this hands-on lesson on circuits.

MagLab researchers use 21 tesla ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) mass spectrometry to identify the best way to produce carbon fibers from petroleum waste products. The best carbon fibers are made from molecules that don’t contain sulfur or large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon structures, and these bad molecules can be converted to better precursors by mild thermal treatment.

For the first time, NMR diffusion measurements have been successfully used in a metallic catalyst, examining gas exchange rates in nanoporous gold. These findings helped determine an optimal process for efficiently catalyzing CO to CO₂ and may help make the catalyst more effective for industrial applications that reduce waste from power plants and refineries.

The electrical resistance of ring-shaped TaSe₃ devices was measured in magnetic fields of up to 60 T and at temperatures down to 0.6 K. High-field experiments on these devices show that changes in the microscopic quantum mechanical behavior of electrons in TaSe₃ can be controlled by tiny mechanical forces, suggesting a completely new route towards very responsive sensors and devices.

A specialized cybersecurity approach was developed to meet the needs of a user research facility.

A recent test coil with more than 1300 meters of conductor successfully demonstrated a new winding technique for insulated REBCO technology and was fatigue cycled to high strain for hundreds of cycles. This is the MagLab's first "two-in-hand" wound coil and the first fatigue cycling test of a coil of this size, both of which are very important milestones on the path to a 40T user magnet.

A test protocol has been developed and successfully demonstrated the ability to evaluate the performance of a large percentage of tape in a REBCO-wound double pancake module. 

High-temperature superconducting test coils have been subjected to extreme combined loads from high, cyclic pressure and electro-magnetic forces to understand the structural limits of the materials that will be used to make a 40 T all-superconducting magnet.

Because of such desirable properties as high mechanical strength and electrical conductivity, Cu–Ag nano-structured sheets are used, not only in high field DC magnets, but also in the insert for our 45 T hybrid magnet. Because the property anisotropy of these sheets must be considered in these applications, we have now further studied this anisotropic behavior, evaluated the strain-hardening or strain-softening capacity of these sheets, and correlated this capacity with their microstructure.

Recent measurements of superconducting tapes in the MagLab's 45-tesla hybrid magnet shows that the power function dependence of current on magnetic field remains valid up to 45T in liquid helium, while for magnetic field in the plane of the tape conductor, almost no magnetic field dependence is observed. Thus design of ultra-high-field magnets capable of reaching 50T and higher is feasible using the latest high-critical current density REBCO tape.

To increase the rate of particle collisions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, new powerful magnets will soon be made from Nb₃Sn superconducting wires. Here, researchers report a change to the heat-treatment temperature to optimize Nb₃Sn superconducting magnet performance.

High field superconductor magnets greater than 10 T made from brittle Nb₃Sn superconducting wires need special attention to their assembly, strength and endurance. This new study of damage in Nb₃Sn superconducting wire from prototype accelerator coils built at CERN provides a path to designing better superconductor cables for the next generation of higher field accelerator magnets.

High magnetic fields are essential for many exciting scientific and industrial applications including next-generation MRI, particle accelerators, fusion, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Here, a Bi-2212 high-temperature superconducting test coil demonstrated robust operation up to 34T, expanding the options for future magnet development pathways. 

We demonstrated the ability to measure transport critical current dependencies Ic(B,T) of full-width REBCO tapes, giving direct feedback about properties for particular growth conditions. Tape manufacturer SuperPower Inc. was able to improve its conductor with this data quickly. Also, we gave a broad data set to magnet designers to improve their technology, which could one day lead to an abundant source of energy from nuclear fusion reactions.

Lance Cooley, an expert in the field of applied superconductivity, will join the lab this summer.

The new 41.4-tesla instrument reclaims a title for the lab and paves the way for breakthroughs in physics and materials research.

The DOE effort foresees a slew of health, environmental and safety applications.

Lance Cooley brings cool plans for developing superconducting materials and magnets.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, scientists and engineers will determine the best way to build a new class of record-breaking instruments.

State-of-the-art instrument will be used in materials and next-generation magnet research.

The compact coil could lead to a new generation of magnets for biomedical research, nuclear fusion reactors and many applications in between.

The successful test of concept shows that the novel design, using a high-temperature superconductor, could help power tomorrow's particle accelerators, fusion machines and research magnets.

Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will further research that will help make the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators.

New research to understand how processing impacts bismuth-based superconducting wires could help power future magnets or particle accelerators.

The world's next most powerful superconducting magnet will be designed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

As humanity continues its exploration of the universe, the low-gravity environment of space presents unusual challenges for scientists and engineers.

Game-changing technology may hold the key to ever-stronger magnets needed by scientists.

A team of MagLab scientists has been working on the superconducting wires for new electromagnets that will improve physics research at the Large Hadron Collider.

Looking for ways to make better superconductors for the next-generation particle accelerators, a young scientist homed in on how they were heat-treated. He was getting warmer.

Using high-field electromagnets, scientists explore a promising alternative to the increasingly expensive rare earth element - neodymium - widely used in motors.

MagLab experts fine-tuned a furnace for pressure-cooking a novel superconducting magnet. Now they're about to build its big brother.

If engineers build stronger magnets, scientists promise they will come … and that discoveries will follow.

Several materials are in the running to build the next generation of superconducting magnets. Which will emerge the victor?