Helium gas bubble trapped in liquid helium in high magnetic field

High magnetic field magnets are used widely in the area of the condensed matter physics, material science, chemistry, geochemistry, and biology at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. New high field magnets of state-of-the-art are being pursued and developed at the lab, such as the current developing 32 T, 32mm bore fully superconducting magnet. Liquid Helium (LHe) is used as the coolant for superconducting magnets or samples tested in a high magnetic field. When the magnetic field reaches a relatively high value the boil-off helium gas bubble generated by heat losses in the cryostat can be trapped in the LHe bath in the region where BzdBz/dz is less than negative 2100 T-2/m, instead of floating up to the top of LHe. Then the magnet or sample in the trapped bubble region may lose efficient cooling. In the development of the 32 T magnet, a prototype Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide coil of 6 double pancakes with an inner diameter of 40mm and an outer diameter of 140mm was fabricated and tested in a resistive magnet providing a background field of 15 T. The trapped gas bubble was observed in the tests when the prototype coil was ramped up to 7.5 T at a current of 200 A. This letter reports the test results on the trapped gas bubble and the comparison with the analytical results which shows they are in a good agreement. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.