Design of a high field uniformity electromagnet for Penning trap

An ion trap (Penning trap) facility is being developed at BARC for spectroscopy studies. This requires the design of an iron core electromagnet capable of generating high magnetic fields (∼1.7T) at the centre of an 88 mm long air gap. This electromagnet provides the requisite dipole magnetic field which when superimposed on the electrostatic quadrupoles ensures a stable trapping of ions. To conduct high precision spectroscopy studies, we need to ensure a high degree of magnetic field uniformity (<100ppm) in the required Good Field Region (GFR) of 3 cm3 volume (Trap zone). Various pole shoe profiles were studied and modelled, FEM simulation of the same were conducted to compute the magnetic field intensity and field uniformity. Owing to the large air gap and requirement of high field intensity in the GFR, the exciting coils need to handle high current densities, which require water cooled systems. Double Pan-Cake coil design is selected for powering the magnet. Electrical, thermal and hydraulic designs of the coils are completed and a prototype double pancake coil was fabricated and tested for verifying the electrical and thermal parameter. The spatial field homogeneity is achieved by shimming the pole tip. Temporal stability of magnet requires a highly stable power supply for exciting the coils and its stability class is derived from FEM simulations. This paper discusses the electromagnetic design and development of the penning trap magnet being developed at BARC. (author)