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2012 NSF Monthly Highlights

The National Science Foundation periodically solicits science highlights from the Magnet Lab. These monthly highlights, selected by MagLab Director Greg Boebinger, represent the most promising and cutting-edge research underway in the lab’s seven user programs. Below are our monthly highlights for 2012.

Also visit our NSF Annual Highlights page for a compilation of end-of-year annual highlights. Or, for a list of select MagLab-enabled research recently published in prominent journals, please consult our Research Summaries page.

Click on a highlight’s title to view a PDF with more details.

Large Cable-in-Conduit Coil Fabrication at the MagLab
MagLab engineers are building two cable-in-conduit superconducting coils for hybrid magnets, each with a resistive inner coil and a superconducting outer coil.

Date: December 15, 2012
Research Area: Magnet Science & Technology
Site / Program: FSU / MS&T
Instrument: R&D - Series-Connected Hybrid
Contact: Mark Bird
Grants: M. D. Bird (NSF DMR-0603042); P. Smeibidl (German Government)

Filament Fracture in ITER Conductor under Cyclic Lorentz Force Loading
First direct evidence that filament fracture accompanies degradation of superconducting cables designed for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) — The tokomak fusion reactor ITER, now under construction in France, is an international collaboration crucial to future energy generation from nuclear fusion.

Date: December 15, 2012
Research Area: Applied Superconductivity
Site / Program: FSU / ASC
Instrument: Zeiss Crossbeam® Field Emission SEM/FIB at NHMFL/ ASC
Contact: Peter Lee
Grants: P. J. Lee (ITER Organization 100000610); P. J. Lee and D. C. Larbalestier (US DOE OFES DE-FG02-06ER54881)

Di-Nitrogen Activation by Vanadium(III) Complexes for Chemical Catalysis
Researchers from the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory user program performed high-frequency (329 GHz) electron magnetic resonance (EMR) experiments to address questions of fundamental importance in catalysis 1) improving industrial production of ammonia and ammonia-derived fertilizers, and 2) understanding of the atmospheric nitrogen cycle.

Date: December 15, 2012
Research Area: Chemistry
Site / Program: FSU / EMR
Instrument: EMR Transmission Spectrometer
Contact: Jurek Krzystek
Grants: Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118); Mindiola (DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-07ER15893); Mayer (German DFG)

High-Resolution MRI Probe for STRAFI Studies of Solid Materials
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of solid materials entails numerous problems from short longitudinal relaxation (T₂) times to requiring strong gradients to attain high resolution images.

Date: November 15, 2012
Research Area: Magnetic Resonance Technique Development
Site / Program: FSU / NMR-MRI
Instrument: 19.6 T Narrow Bore - NMR Magnet
Contact: Riqiang Fu
Grants: NSF DMR-0654118 and NHMFL User Collaboration Grant Program award (R. Fu)

Relativistic Fermions and Quantum Magnetoresistance in CaMnBi₂
We report two-dimensional (2D) Dirac fermions and quantum magnetoresistance (MR) in Bi square nets of CaMnBi₂ crystals.

Date: November 15, 2012
Research Area: Condensed Matter Physics
Site / Program: FSU/DC Field
Instrument: DC Field and 35 T Resistive Magnet
Contact: Stan Tozer
Grants: DE-AC02-98CH10886 (Work at BNL), DOE NNSA DE-FG52-10NA29659 (S. Tozer and D. Graf), NSF DMR-0654118

Powerful New Ionization Technique for Mass Spectroscopy That Avoids Fragmentation of Saturated Hydrocarbons
Saturated hydrocarbons (the primary components of gasoline) are difficult to analyze by mass spectrometry, because attempts to ionize (i.e., charge) them typically result in extensive fragmentation.

Date: October 15, 2012
Research Area: Chemistry
Site / Program: FSU/ICR
Instrument: 9.4 Tesla FT-ICR Mass Spectrometer
Contact: Alan Marshall
Grants: NSF DMR 06-54118

Symmetry Breaking in Graphene
While the laws of physics are often symmetric, physical properties often reflect broken symmetry, in which a specific orientation is chosen spontaneously from many distinct but equivalent possibilities. The orientation of a crystal, magnetization of a kitchen magnet, or indeed the value of the Higgs field — through which all elementary particles acquire mass — all reflect this fundamental process of symmetry breaking.

Date: September 15, 2012
Research Area: Condensed Matter Physics
Site / Program: FSU/DC Field
Instrument: DC Field and 35 T Resistive Magnet
Contact: Eric Palm
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118); J. Yardley (NSF CHE-0117752); P. Kim (DOE DE-FG02-05ER046215)

High Critical Current Density in Fine-grain (Ba_0.6K_0.4)Fe₂As₂
Ferro-pnictide superconductors attracted immediate attention for potential applications due to their high superconducting transition temperatures (Tc up to 56 K) and high upper critical magnetic fields (H_c2 over 100 T). Unfortunately, much as in cuprates, grain boundaries (GBs) were found to obstruct their current carrying capability. This posed a serious technological problem because wires for magnets cannot be single crystals and, thus, inevitably contain grain boundaries. This work shows that low-temperature synthesis of the compound (Ba_0.6K_0.4)Fe₂As₂ (Ba-122) in the form of polycrystalline wire achieves a current density three times that of state-of-the-art Nb₃Sn wires.

Date: August 15, 2012
Research Area: Applied Superconductivity
Site / Program: FSU/ASC
Instrument: Characterization performed at NHMFL/ ASC
Contact: Eric Hellstrom
Grants: E.E. Hellstrom (NSF DMR-1006584); NHMFL (NSF DMR-0654118)

Understanding Nanoscale Magnetization Dynamics via High-Field EPR
Molecules that exhibit slow magnetic relaxation upon removal from a polarizing magnetic field are referred to as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). SMMs receive considerable attention owing to their potential utility in applications such as spin-based information storage. In these systems, the slow relaxation normally arises from the action of an easy-axis magnetic anisotropy, quantified by a negative axial zero-field splitting parameter, D < 0, on a high-spin ground state. Two separate EPR studies carried out in the DC field facility by users from UC Berkeley (chemistry) have identified compounds that undergo slow relaxation, even though the relevant magnetic ions possess easy-plane-type anisotropy (i.e. D > 0).

Date: August 15, 2012
Research Area: Electron Magnetic Resonance
Site / Program: EMR Facility & DC Field Facilities
Instrument: EMR instrumentation, DC resistive magnet
Contact: Stephen Hill
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR0654118); J. Long (NSF CHE1111900, DoE/LBNL 403801); S. Hill (NSF DMR0804408)

An Adjustable Sliding Ring Coil for Neuroimaging in Vertical High Fields: ex vivo and in vivo Applications at 21.1 T
Biomedical researchers have a unique tool to investigate a variety of living and excised specimen with the MagLab’s 21.1 T 900-MHz ultra-widebore (105-mm) vertical magnet. However, there are challenges to performing research in a high field vertical magnet, which have been addressed by a NHMFL-led team of international scientists working to make very high field or ultra high field MRI more flexible. This team has constructed a tunable sliding ring transmit/receive volume coil for 900-MHz hydrogen MRI that provides the uniformity and sensitivity for high resolution and functional imaging of living samples while accommodating unique excised samples to improve characterization and throughput. This new design incorporates the apparatus necessary for maintaining animals in a vertical position while providing remote tuning and sample flexibility beyond most available coils.

Date: July 16, 2012
Research Area: Biochemistry & Magnetic Resonance Technology
Site / Program: FSU/NMR
Instrument: NMR Facility and the 900 MHz, Ultra-Wide Bore 105 mm NMR Magnet
Contact: Sam Grant
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118); S.C. Grant (NSF-NHMFL User Collaboration Grants Program)

Novel Fractional Quantum Hall States in Two-Dimensional Electron Systems

Date: July 16, 2012
Research Area: Condensed Matter Physics
Site / Program: FSU / High B/T Facility
Instrument: High B/T Facility and Bay 2 of UF Microkelvin Lab
Contact: Neil Sullivan
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118); W. Pan (DOE-AC04-94AL85000); D. Tsui (DOE-FG-02-98ER4563)

Magnetostriction and Magnetic Texture to 100.75 Tesla in Frustrated SrCu₂(BO₃)₂
Magnetic systems provide controllable “model” systems to study interacting many body quantum effects, relevant to poorly understood problems beyond the realm of magnetism. For example, disorder leads to Bose glass behavior, enabling study of the Bose-glass to BEC transition in quantum magnets — a key component to understanding the superconductor-to-insulator quantum phase transition. High magnetic fields drive Bose glasses into Bose-Einstein condensates.

New magnetic phases are revealed in ultrahigh magnetic fields
Developed an optical method to measure magnetization via magneto-striction
Dimers are coupled; magnetization increases in steps whenever stable magnetic textures are formed
New magnetic textures long predicted, but never observed … until now!

Date: June 15, 2012
Research Area: Condensed Matter Physics
Site / Program: LANL / Pulsed Field Facility
Instrument: 100 Tesla Multi-shot
Contact: Marcelo Jaime
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118), M. Jaime (NHMFL-UCGP)

The Smallest Stable Fullerene, M@C₂₈ (M = Ti, Zr, U)
Buckminster Fullerenes (“Buckyballs”) have fascinated chemists since the original discovery of C₆₀, leading to the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Curl, Kroto and Smalley. Although fullerenes of various sizes have since been observed, the theoretically smallest fullerene, C₂₈, has until now escaped detection, due to its high curvature and thus high reactivity.

Date: June 15, 2012
Research Area: Chemistry
Site / Program: FSU / ICR
Instrument: 9.4 Tesla Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometer
Contact: Alan Marshall or Harold Kroto
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-06-54118); A.G. Marshall (NSF CHE-10-19193); J. M. Poblet (Spanish Ministry of Science Innovation Project No. CTQ-2011-29054-C02-01) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009-GR462 and XRQTC)

First Superfluorescence in a Solid
Superfluorescence, historically, is the spontaneous emission of light from a collection of excited atoms. Scientists visiting the MagLab recently discovered superfluorescence for the first time in a solid material, by shining an extremely brief pulse of light on a layered semiconductor located in an intense magnetic field. In response, superfluorescent light of a different color was emitted thirty trillionths of a second later. Superfluorescence can be used to produce light of any desired color and could be enhanced to occur at room temperature and without magnetic fields. Superfluorescent devices would be powerful tools for optical communications.

Date: May 15, 2012
Research Area: Condensed Matter Physics
Site / Program: FSU / DC Field
Instrument: 17.5 Tesla Magnet for Ultrafast Optics/ UV/ VIS/ NIR spectroscopy
Contact: Junichiro Kono or David Reitze
Grants: G.S. Boebinger (NSF DMR-0654118); J. Kono (NSF DMR-1006663); A. Belyanin (NSF ECS-0547019)

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