THE USE OF HIGH MAGNETIC-FIELDS AT THE STUDY OF MAGNETISM AND SUPERCONDUCTIVITY IN INTERMETALLIC COMPOUNDS

Magnetic fields have a large impact on the magnetic and superconducting properties of solids. High magnetic fields are required to reach magnetic saturation along a hard magnetic direction in a variety of rare-earth intermetallics, to break the ferrimagnetic moment configuration in specific 3d-4f intermetallics, to quench the strongly correlated electron states in heavy-fermion compounds, to reach the upper critical fields in several classes of superconductors, to study flux-pinning phenomena in the high-T(c) superconductors, etc. In the present review, the attention is focused to the field interval 20-50 tesla. Experiments in this field range are the privilege of specialized high magnetic field laboratories. There is a lively activity in this area of research with the number of participating institutes continuously growing.