SCIENCE OPPORTUNITIES AT HIGH MAGNETIC-FIELDS

A number of specialized facilities have been developed or are under de velopment throughout the world to support research in condensed matter sciences at high magnetic fields. These facilities provide or will pr ovide continuous magnetic fields up to 40-45 T and pulsed fields up to 50-70 T for tens of ms periods with fields beyond 100 T for several m u s's. Also under development in the United States and under considera tion in Europe are non-destructive magnets capable of providing magnet ic fields at 100 T for tens of ms. During the last several years, new laboratories have been opened in the United States and Japan with majo r expansions of facilities occurring in France, and proposed for The N etherlands and other countries. These new facilities will expand the r esearch opportunities at the extremes of parameter space, i.e., magnet ic field, ultra-low temperatures and high pressures, for researchers i n all areas of science. An overview of the facilities throughout the w orld will be presented along with a brief discussion of the science op portunities and recent results at the extremes of high magnetic field. The examples presented in this article represent only a small samplin g of the new opportunities being provided due to the significant advan cements in magnet technology and the availability of new facilities an d instrumentation capabilities. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig hts reserved.