Materials - Record-setting wire

An international team of researchers from several Korean institutes, one Australian university and Oak Ridge National Laboratory has reported on a performance record in high-temperature superconducting wires. The material, fabricated through a Korean-developed manufacturing process and tested at ORNL, is capable of carrying a high critical current – up to 1,500 amperes per centimeter of width – over long lengths of wire. “These are among the highest values ever reported from any lengths of cuprate-based HTS wire or conductor,” said ORNL’s Amit Goyal, a co-author on the study published in Nature Magazine’s Scientific Reports. The cost-effective manufacturing process could help accelerate the use of HTS wires in a broad range of electric-power applications, such as underground power transmission cables, fault current limiters, motors and generators.