China has developed the world's strongest resistive magnet capable of creating a permanent magnetic field of 42 tesla (T) . This is 800,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. The record belongs to the laboratory staff of the Institute of Physical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL).
Electromagnets generate a permanent magnetic field when an electric current is passed. Resistive magnets are often made of copper, which makes them relatively cheap to manufacture. But such structures are susceptible to heat.
The authors of the development presented an updated magnetic structure with which they managed to set a world record for generating a permanent magnetic field at the level of 42 T with a power of 32.3 MW. It took scientists almost four years to do this.
Their achievement surpasses the previous record of 41.4 tesla, set by the US National Strong Magnetic Field Laboratory in 2017. At the same time, the absolute record of 45.2 Tesla also belongs to CHMFL: the team set it using a hybrid magnet in 2022.