The levitation characteristics of the magnetic substances using trapped HTS bulk annuli with various magnetic field distributions

• The spherical solenoid magnet can make a various magnetic field distributions.
• We generated a large magnetic gradient at inner space of HTS bulks.
• The levitation height of samples was improved by the reapplied field method.
• The levitation height depends on the variation rate of magnetic field gradient.

We have been investigating the levitation system without any mechanical contact which is composed of a field-cooled ring-shaped high temperature superconducting (HTS) bulks [1]. In this proposed levitation system, the trapped magnetic field distributions of stacked HTS bulk are very important. In this paper, the spherical solenoid magnet composed of seven solenoid coils with different inner and outer diameters was designed and fabricated as a new magnetic source. The fabricated spherical solenoid magnet can easily make a homogeneous and various magnetic field distributions in inner space of stacked HTS bulk annuli by controlling the emerging currents of each coil. By using this spherical solenoid magnet, we tried to make a large magnetic field gradient in inner space of HTS bulk annuli, and it is very important on the levitation of magnetic substances. In order to improve the levitation properties of magnetic substances with various sizes, the external fields were reapplied to the initially trapped HTS bulk magnets. We could generate a large magnetic field gradient along the axial direction in inner space of HTS bulk annuli, and obtain the improved levitation height of samples by the proposed reapplied field method.