"This paper has very strong implications for the United States
staying ahead in magnet technology, which would bring great
dividends in research and improvements in medical imaging." A
scientific surprise greets FSU researchers at higher magnetic
fields by Susan Ray Research performed by a team at Florida
State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
suggests that the benefits of building higher-field
superconducting magnets likely will far outweigh the costs of
building them. FSU researchers Riqiang Fu, Ozge Gunaydin-Sen and
Naresh Dalal discovered something they weren't expecting while
trying to improve the resolution, or quality of image, in the
magnet lab's unique 900-megahertz, 21.1-tesla magnet. While
experimenting with the giant magnet, the three noted an
exponential increase in the ease of detecting the "fingerprint"
of the chemical compound they were studying as they exposed it
to ever-higher magnetic fields. A paper describing their
research was published recently in the Journal of the