At the MagLab, we
generate magnetic fields exceeding a million times the Earth’s magnetic
field.This talk seeks to answer
the question, “why would anyone want to do such a thing?” It
turns out that magnetic fields are a fundamental research tool…being one of the
few thermodynamic parameters that can be tuned continuously and reversibly to
address many questions in materials, energy, environment and health.
A few illustrative
examples from • electron correlations: tweaking macroscopic
quantum phenomena; • energy: analyzing nature’s most
complex fluid, petroleum, using cyclotron resonance; and • health: using quantum dots to track living stem
cells with magnetic resonance imaging.
