Comparison of magnetic field uniformities for discretized and finite-sized standard , solenoidal, and spherical coils

A significant challenge for experiments requiring a highly uniform magnetic field concerns the identification and design of a discretized and finite-sized magnetic field coil of minimal size. In this work we compare calculations of the magnetic field uniformities and field gradients for three different standard (i.e., non-optimized) types of coils: cos θ , solenoidal, and spherical coils. For an experiment with a particular requirement on either the field uniformity or the field gradient, we show that the volume required by a spherical coil form which satisfies these requirements can be significantly less than the volumes required by cos θ and solenoidal coil forms.