The Russian-American high magnetic field collaboration

The authors report here on a joint experimental shot series with teams from Russia and the United States. The program was based largely upon the MC-1 generator, a high magnetic field explosive flux compressor, developed by the Pavlovskii group at Arzamas-16. The series was of historical interest in that it was carried out in a Los Alamos security area, the first time for such a collaboration. They discuss a number of technical issues involved in matching Russian hardware with Los Alamos explosives, initiation systems and the seed field energy source, as well as comparison of field measuring diagnostics furnished by the two teams. They conclude with a discussion of an investigation of the high temperature superconductor YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7/ (YBCO), employing these generators. The low temperature critical magnetic field of this material was found to be 340/spl plusmn/40 T, as determined from a 94 GHz microwave interferometer developed for this purpose.