FASUM – a 40 T all-superconducting magnet project (coordinating institution: Université Grenoble Alpes - with CNRS and CEA as partners) is financed by French ANR EQUIPEX program – 4.32 M€.

The FASUM (Fourty Tesla Superconducting User Magnet) project aims at keeping France as one of the leaders in experimental research in intense magnetic fields and to facilitate the use of intense field experimentation for as many researchers as possible. The project consists of building, testing and operating an all-superconducting 40 Tesla magnet based on the design study carried out as part of a European multi-partner project (SuperEMFL). This project, led by the National Laboratory of Intense Magnetic Fields (LNCMI-CNRS) which brings to it its technological knowledge unique in the world (NOUGAT technology for the internal ReBaCuO magnet), thus brings together academic and industrial partners from all over Europe.

This new platform will be integrated into the network of existing platforms for intense magnetic fields of the EMFL (European Magnetic Field Laboratory) and will eventually allow the reception of French researchers and the European consortium, and even beyond, as part of the EMFL's regular calls for projects.

Today, 40 T are accessible either in a pulsed field (a few milli seconds in Toulouse, Dresden or Los Alamos) or in a static resistive field (in Grenoble, Nijmegen or Tallahassee). Resistive fields typically require 20 MW of electrical power and cooling which considerably limits the experiments in duration (a few hours in Grenoble thanks to the Drac river dam which allows continuous cooling) and therefore the type of science accessible.

Tomorrow, with FASUM, it will be possible to carry out longer experiments (several days) and therefore to carry out long spectroscopies (such as NMR), material growth under a magnetic field, chemistry or biology under a magnetic field which are impossible today. For quantum technologies, for example, magnetic fields are one of the essential tools for characterizing materials, putting Grenoble in a very good place in world research