Superconducting Magnet Program

Base Program: A Common Foundation for Advancement in Many Areas

The performance requirements of modern accelerators continue to press the limits of magnet technology. Besides R&D that is strongly focused on magnets for a particular project, we have a base program that performs research of long-term or general benefit. Our philosophy is high-risk but high-potential-payoff R&D that expands the limits of superconducting magnet technology, a high-leverage investment that can benefit a wide variety of applications.

DOE Conductor Development Program: Expanding the Most Fundamental Frontier of Magnets

The goal of this ongoing program is to provide cost-effective, high performance superconductors for the next generation high-energy physics (HEP) colliders. It is an industry-based national program which we manage on behalf of the DOE Office of High Energy Physics. Its first phase is primarily R&D leading to an improved understanding of the factors that influence conductor performance and cost.

LARP: Next Chapter in the LHC Story

Major accelerators are repeatedly upgraded over the years, maximizing the scientific return on the investment. Before it was even completed in its present version (famed as the discovery site of the Higgs boson), scientists and engineers were planning upgrades. LBNL has had a primary role since the inception of the four-laboratory US Large Hadron Collider Accelerator Research Program (US-LARP) collaboration.

The latest effort is aimed at an order-of-magnitude increase in beam luminosity. Our primary role will involve the first major use of the brittle high-field niobium-tin (Nb₃Sn) superconductor in an operating accelerator.

Berkeley Center for Magnet Technology

High-performance magnets are vital to a wide variety of DOE-supported science priorities. Multiple areas of magnetics expertise at LBNL, including our program, are being brought together as the Berkeley Center for Magnet Technology (BCMT). A joint enterprise of ATAP and the Engineering Division, BCMT unites expertise and technologies presently found in several parts of LBNL, including not only accelerator lattice magnets (both normal-conducting and superconducting) but also permanent-magnet and hybrid insertion devices used in synchrotron light sources and free-electron lasers, as well as other applications of advanced magnets for a variety of customers.