The Magnet Lab at the University of Florida (Gainesville)

High B/T Program Director Neil Sullivan (far right) confers with staff scientists Liang Yin (far left) and Jian-sheng Xia.

Science Focus

The University of Florida is home to two Magnet Lab user programs, the Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (AMRIS) and High B/T user programs (see map).

The Mag Lab's MRI and spectroscopy capabilities are located at AMRIS, which is part of UF's McKnight Brain Institute. AMRIS houses a variety of state-of-the-art instruments for studies, including biological solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), solution NMR, microimaging, animal imaging and human imaging. These facilities allow researchers to take very high resolution images and do single cell imaging. For example, scientists can image the brain to study the effects of epilepsy, strokes, spinal cord injuries, tumors, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. AMRIS also is home to a 600 MHz, triple-resonance probe that appears to deliver the highest mass sensitivity of any probe at any frequency.

The High B/T program is housed in UF's Microkelvin Laboratory and in adjacent Williamson Hall at the University of Florida; the "B" stands for high magnetic fields, and the "T" refers to the extremely low temperatures. This facility gives physicists the reliability and precision needed for exploring phenomena at the lowest possible temperatures (far colder than any naturally occurring place in the universe) and opens new research opportunities in quantum fluids, semiconductor multi-layers and nuclear magnetism.

In addition to these resources, Magnet Lab users also have access to the Nanofabrication Facility, operated in conjunction with UF's Major Analytical Instrumentation Center, for the fabrication and characterization of nanostructures.

Key Facilities

At AMRIS:

• A powerful 11.7-tesla MRI system with a 40-centimeter bore capable of imaging small animals and allowing researchers to take higher resolution images of the brain to study the effects of various diseases and injuries
• A 17.5-tesla, 750 megahertz (MHz) wide bore NMR/MRI magnet system capable of taking very high quality three-dimensional images
• A 3-tesla human system
• An on-site radio frequency coil lab

At the High B/T Facility:

• Bay 3 of the Microkelvin Laboratory: a 16-tesla magnet system with a 10-tesla demagnetization stage (PrNi₅) for simultaneous measurements at high B and low T to below 0.0002 K
• Bay 2 of the Microkelvin Laboratory: a 10-tesla magnet system with an 8-tesla demagnetization system capable of reaching below 0.00005K
• Williamson Hall Annex: a 10 T magnet system with 10 mK dilution refrigerator for fast turn-around experiments and pre-testing samples before conducting experiments in bay 2 and bay 3
• An ultra-quiet environment that insulates experiments from outside interference due to vibrations and electromagnetic fields

Related Links

• Travel to Gainesville
• The Magnet Lab at Florida State University (Tallahassee)
• The Magnet Lab at Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico)

For more information on the High B/T Facility, contact Neil Sullivan at sullivan@phys.ufl.edu or (352) 846-3137, or visit the High B/T Web site.

For more information on AMRIS, contact Director Joanna Long at jrlong@mbi.ufl.edu or (352) 846-1506, or visit the AMRIS Web site.