Generation and measurement of strong pulsed magnetic fields of microsecond timescale

The generation of strong (≥30 T) magnetic fields is important for basic research and different applications. The generation of such strong magnetic fields involves high energy (>100 kJ) pulse generators and magnetic fields >100 T are usually obtained by destructive methods. The measurement of such strong magnetic fields involves either Hall probes or B-dots or fiber optic probes. Here we present the results of measuring a pulsed magnetic field of up to 50 T generated by single/three turns coils. The coils were placed in water and supplied by a ∼230 kA current with pulse with rise time of ∼1 μs produced by a pulse generator with stored energy of ∼3 kJ. Due to high Verdet constant of water, the Faraday rotation of the electric field of the laser beam propagating along the axis of the coil was used to measure the time evolution of the magnetic field. In addition, it was shown that this method can be applied to measure the magnetic field's diffusion enhanced due to the fast heating of the metal.