Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés CNRS – INSA

Research Council (“Opportunities in High Magnetic Field Sciences”, COHMAG 2005), a compelling
case has been made for high magnetic fields as a research tool for a wide variety of research topics and
strong recommendations were made to stimulate high magnetic field large facilities.
Since then, the recent developments in high magnetic field science have only further emphasised the
importance and impact of high magnetic fields. The results obtained clearly illustrate the power,
versatility and necessity of high magnetic fields as a research tool.
National and international context
The generation of very high magnetic fields is a technological challenge and their exploitation requires
a high financial commitment. Therefore not many infrastructures exist where very high magnetic
fields can be generated and used for research. Over the last twenty years, financial limitations and the
complexity of such installations have resulted in a further concentration of these activities in less but
larger infrastructures, very often operated on a national scale. For generating continuous magnetic
fields in excess of 30 T, powered with 15+ MW power supplies, installations can be found in the USA
(Tallahassee), Japan (Tsukuba) and Europe (Grenoble and Nijmegen). Large pulsed field installations
based either on motor generators or large (> 5 MJ) capacitor banks are found in Los Alamos (USA),
Tokyo (Japan), and in Europe in Toulouse and in Dresden (created in 2006). As the most recent step in
this trend, in 2007 the Chinese government has created a 40 M€national high magnetic field facility,
consisting of a static field installation in Heifei and a pulsed field installation in Wuhan. Still the
clearest example of this trend is the creation of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
(NHMFL) in the USA, a three site organization that pioneers all aspects of high magnetic field
generation, and its use for scientific experiments.
The current LNCMP installation was designed in 1992, and completed in 2000. Despite the continuous
and gradual improvements that have been implemented since then, this installation is basically no
longer up to the current standards and major investments are needed to improve its safety and to
guarantee its international competitiveness in the future. To obtain the necessary investments, it is
necessary to increase the weight and impact of high magnetic fields within the context of the French
large facilities. Following the example of the NHMFL, it was therefore proposed to merge the LCMI
and LNCMP into one Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses (LNCMI, UPR3228),
on two sites. The new laboratory, with its increased size, scientific production and impact, and user
community, will become a more important factor among the French large facilities, and it can be
expected that through collaboration and synergy, the LNCMI will be more than just the sum of the
LCMI and LNCMP, again improving the position of high field science in France and in Europe.
The LNCMI is the coordinator of the FP7 European infrastructure activity ‘EuroMagNET2’
(www.euromagnet2.eu) (2009-2012) that coordinates the activities of all European high field facilities
(LNCMI, HLD Dresden, HFML Nijmegen). To further strengthen European collaboration, the
LNCMI has been advocating the creation of a distributed European Magnetic Field Laboratory,
uniting these four installations. This idea has been implemented through an ESRFI Roadmap Update
proposal that was accepted last December (www.emfl.eu) and that will be elaborated in a future FP7
design study.
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