After so many years, I finally have found somebody announcing his love of NMR in public 🙂

These pictures were taken right before Christmas of 2014:

Helium dewar in the magnet is being cooled down by cold nitrogen gas. Then liquid helium will take over to further cool the dewar to 4K.

Current is flowing via the orange cable to the superconducting coil. The big rock is gradually becoming magnetic.

What a big Christmas gift!

(1) Arrived! … in pieces.

(2) magnet is lifted and assembled.

(3) Cloud… formed by cold helium gas. Quenched when ramping up the field.

(4) Succeeded on the second try. The curve on the screen is the first NMR spectrum from our new 500. It does not resemble anything like our typical NMR spectra though? – Engineers will still need to do cryo-shim and room-T shim to make the peak sharper (about 10,000 times sharper than what’s on the screen).

7/31/14. The soul (a.k.a. superconducting current) is leaving the magnet via the orange wires.

7/31/14. Left-over liquid helium and nitrogen are being driven out.

 8/4/14. Magnet is being lifted (and legs off).

8/6/14. Sitting quietly in a corner, ready for its next journey.