Research at High Magnetic Fields in Europe, the New Facility in Dresden

In nature, the magnetic field acts as a fundamental thermodynamic property like temperature or pressure. For this, the magnetic field plays a decisive role in many facets of nature, and in consequence, is of importance in several natural sciences. In particular, the understanding of magnetic properties of matter and the interplay of magnetism with other quantities is a challenging field of research. Under extreme conditions, like low temperatures, high pressures, and high magnetic fields, new interesting properties of matter can appear and the understanding of materials properties can crucially be gained.

Further, the manifold magnetic effects in nature and in particular the magnetic properties of matter are a rich source for technological innovations. Historically, there is an immense number of inventions like the compass, electro motor, generator, relay, magnetic brake, levitating train, nuclear magnetic resonance tomograph, hard disk drive, magneto-electric random access memory. Nowadays, in transport, energy production, medicine, communication, data storage, and other areas of daily live, magnetic systems, components, and properties are used in a large variety.

In the last decades, the application of high magnetic fields became a powerful research tool. Especially in solid state physics important discoveries like the integer quantum Hall and fractional quantum Hall effect, both honoured with the Physics Nobel Prize, are based on experiments in very high magnetic fields.

In order to establish a large modern user facility with unique experimental possibilities for science in high magnetic fields and in order to provide an easy access for the high field community in Europe, the Dresden High Field Project has been created. Since 2003 this facility is under construction. In this paper, we give a snapshot on the status and some recent achievements in the course of the project. The Dresden High Field Laboratory for nondestructive pulsed magnetic fields up to 100 T will open its doors as a user facility in January 2007.