IEEE.org | IEEE Xplore Digital Library | IEEE Standards | IEEE Spectrum | More Sites
The CSC Presentation Library exists to preserve and disseminate video lectures, discussions, and presentations from the conferences and workshops that the Council supports. Since its inception in 2012, the library has become a rich repository highlighting many of the key advancements in superconductivity and is available free of charge in collaboration with IEEE.tv.
Feel free to browse or search the library below.
Low-temperature superconductors (LTS) require liquid helium, yet can only generate a magnetic field lower than 24 T. For full-fledged commercialization of superconducting equipment, high temperature superconducting (HTS) conductors are preferred as they can be cooled by the more cost-efficient liquid nitrogen and they can generate a much higher magnetic field, such as 30 T at 4.2 K. However, one of the major drawbacks of the HTS conductor is its short maximum length of a single conductor wire, typically <500 m. As a result, many joints need to be installed in the superconducting equipment, resulting in a difficult manufacturing process and a complicated operating procedure. Thus, we commenced a 10-year JST-MIRAI Program in 2017, focusing on developing the joint technology for linking HTS conductors. The program has two important research and development directions:
Dramatic progress has been made in the last decade and a half towards realizing solid-state systems for quantum information processing with superconducting quantum circuits. Artificial atoms (or qubits) based on Josephson junctions have improved their coherence times more than a million-fold, have been entangled, and used to perform simple quantum algorithms. The next challenge for the field is demonstrating quantum error correction that actually improves the lifetimes, a necessary step for building more complex systems. At Yale, we have been pursuing a hardware-efficient approach for error correction, that relies on encoding information in a superconducting cavity, the so-called “cat codes.” With this approach, we have applied real-time measurements and feedback to achieve the first extension of the lifetime of a quantum bit through error correction. For scaling, an attractive approach is the modular architecture, in which small quantum processors are networked together using microwave signals on superconducting transmission lines. I will present the first implementation of a teleported C-NOT gate, which is a key building block for the modular approach.
More information provided here.
Recent large-scale improvements in technical performance and production capacity of HTS materials, principally REBCO tape and Bi-2212 round wire, are enabling extension of magnet technology to magnetic fields of 20 T and well beyond. This has enormous potential benefit for both scientific and economic reasons in many applications of superconductor technology. In this roundtable discussion, three experts in the fields of NMR/MRI, High Energy Physics, and Magnetic Confinement Fusion are brought together to discuss the expansion of the scientific and technical horizons enabled by HTS technology. and to compare and contrast how the technology is being used in these particular applications. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been widely used in chemical, biochemical, and biological research, where high field magnets are playing central roles. Currently, most NMR magnets are made of low-temperature superconductors, typically a combination of NbTi and Nb3Sn. Although the last upgrade of LTS NMR magnet field was 23 T (1 GHz of 1H NMR frequency) in 2010 by the Bruker BioSpin, the higher field has been desired by the NMR user community. It is widely agreed among magnet engineers that high-temperature superconductor (HTS) capable of generating a field far greater than 23 T will play an increasingly indispensable role in >1 GHz NMR magnet. Yet, technical challenges, especially protection of HTS magnet and field inhomogeneity by screening currents, need to be overcome for widespread use of HTS in GHz-class NMR magnets. In this discussion, key technical challenges and state-of-the-art technologies in HTS NMR magnets are briefly introduced together with the latest achievements in HTS NMR magnets. Likewise, in the field of High Energy Physics (HEP) NbTi and Nb3Sn superconducting magnets have been key to major particle physics and nuclear physics colliders including the Tevatron, RHIC, HERA, and LHC. The 8.33 T NbTi accelerator dipole magnets underpin the LHC at CERN, enabling the discovery of the Higgs Boson and the ongoing search for physics beyond the standard model of high energy physics, whereas Nb3Sn magnets are a key to a high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC that aims to increase the luminosity of the LHC by a factor of 5-10. In this discussion, we examine how emerging HTS conductor and magnet technologies can extend scientific space into higher fields (> 20T) and higher temperature for frontier accelerator facilities, and how HTS conductors can meet the severe requirements in terms critical current, magnetization, stress management, and quench protection. The recent commercial availability of high-temperature superconductors (HTS), specifically second-generation HTS REBCO coated conductors, at the scale and performance required to build high-field magnets represents a breakthrough opportunity to accelerate fusion energy. Many of the key fusion energy performance metrics in a tokamak, the leading fusion energy concept, scale as the strength of the magnetic field available to confine the plasma to the third or fourth power. One of the most important consequences of this fact is that increasing the magnetic field in a tokamak enables a dramatically smaller device to demonstrate net-energy production. A reduction in size is accompanied by important reductions in cost, timeline, and organizational complexity required to construct and operate the device, enabling a net-energy fusion device to be constructed at university or private company scale through innovative private funding models. The first step in this pathway – now actively underway at several institutions and companies – is to demonstrate the large-bore, high-field REBCO superconducting magnet technology at suitable scale for fusion systems. Part of this panel discussion will look at the game-changing advantages of high magnetic field fusion physics and engineering and some of the efforts underway to pursue this accelerated pathway to fusion energy.
Additional keywords:
BSCCO, NMR, High Energy Physics accelerators, nuclear fusion
Because of their complexity on length scales from atomic disorder to macroscopic cables, the development of the high-performance superconductors relies on an accurate characterization of their micro- and macro-structures. Furthermore, the performance of superconductors is often limited by structural and chemical inhomogeneities, both locally and over long lengths, that provide particular challenges for techniques that often sample only small volumes of material. In this talk, we demonstrate how key developments in our understanding of superconductors wire made possible by combining quantitative microscopic and microchemical techniques with detailed characterizations of superconducting properties. As we push our current generation of superconductors towards its limits, we look at the new innovations in microscopy required to understand those limitations and provide us with the information we need to make the next generation of superconductor applications a reality.
The use of HTS in Mobility and in Power Technology is not a goal by itself. We will consider general and fundamental aspects and correlations in the respective field and enlighten the basic relations - not requiring the audience to be deep dive experts in the field, but aiming to provide some new insights for everyone. HTS, in general, is a quite well-known phenomenon to many potential end users; some of them have been in touch with HTS during the bloom of 1G-HTS already. Due to the fact that the HTS materials and wires have made extremely good progress in the last years, it is important to educate the engineers active in the field and in conventional business on changed and actual boundary conditions and chances. Depending on the specific application in Mobility and Power Technology, the key success properties of HTS and device will vary a lot, and we will try to provide some takeaways to sharpen the awareness and provide some clues to assess the wisdom of a HTS based device. Despite the progress in HTS performance, there are still white spots needing development efforts. These needs are in even more improved performance and/ or in research for new solutions. So we will try to sketch some ideas for future optimized devices.
For more than five decades, ASC has been an important gathering point for the electronics, large scale, and materials fields within the applied superconductivity community, and we’re proud to continue that tradition this year in Seattle, a vibrant urban city set in what is truly one of the most beautiful parts of North America. We hope you will be able to enjoy much of what the city and the region has to offer, and we are also working hard on a technical program that will represent a wide cross-section of the field and an exhibition that will allow you to connect with the industrial representatives who are critical to enabling us, as scientists and engineers, to do our work.
We are further happy to continue partnering with the IEEE Council on Superconductivity to allow submission of conference manuscripts to a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity (TAS), a peer-reviewed and fully indexed and searchable publication available through IEEE Xplore.
On behalf of many, many volunteers making this conference possible – whether serving as members of the ASC Board of Directors, Program Committee, Editorial staff, or as chairs of conference initiatives, we look forward to seeing you in Seattle!
Matthew Jewell Chair, ASC 2018
Prof. Barish opens the conference with a discussion that will stimulate our thoughts about large projects, such as particle accelerators, which rely upon superconductivity. Besides being a founder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), Prof. Barish was the Director of the Global Design Effort for the International Linear Collider (ILC) project, and co-chair of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel subpanel that developed a long-range plan for U.S. high energy physics back in 2001. Prof. Barish will share his view on linear-collider projects that require superconducting radio-frequency cavities and other large physics and astrophysics projects.
In China, we have a complete research system in applied superconductivity. Because of the particular roles of superconducting technology in telecommunication, sensitive transducer, power and energy, maglev transportation, scientific & medical equipment and environmental protection etc., the research for applied superconductivity has been widely supported by the Chinese government, local governments, industry companies, research institutions and universities. In this presentation, we, on behalf of the Chinese colleagues, will report the recent research activities of applied superconductivity in China. In the last decade, China has achieved significant progress in applied superconductivity. For example in superconducting materials, the Western Superconducting Technologies Co. Ltd, founded in 2004, has become one of the most important companies to supply the NbTi and Nb3Sn materials for ITER project, and SAMRI Advanced Material can produce YBCO tape with length up to 1km, and a 10 m long SrKFeAs superconducting tape made at IEE-CAS has achieved Jc of 180A/mm2 @4.2K and 10 T. In the application for electronics, Zhongyi Superconductor is making HTS microwave filter subsystems for base station. Also, a HTS filter subsystem for satellite receiver front-end, developed by a team in IOP-CAS, has been in operation for over two years in orbit. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) developed by SIMIT-CAS have been successfully used in 200 km measurement device independent-quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD). Application researches on SQUIDs have been strengthened over the past years with a focus on magnetocardiography, geophysical exploration and ULF-MRI. In power and energy, IEE-CAS has built a demonstration system of a 10kV superconducting power substation, and a 360 m/10kA high Tc DC power cable was experimentally operated for an electrolyze workshop. The Innopower demonstrated a 220kV HTS fault current limiter in the transmission system. In superconducting magnet technology, a 7.0 T magnet for animal MRI has been developed by Tsinghua University and Hangzhou Biopharma Innovation Park Ltd., a superconducting magnet with high Tc insert coil made by IEE-CAS reach the field up to 20 T. Besides, a superconducting TOKAMAK experimental system (EAST) has been built by the Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) of CAS.
Josephson's discovery in 1962 of the quantum behavior of superconducting junctions enabled a revolution in precision voltage measurement that replaced electrochemical cells, which are artifact standards whose behavior depends upon environmental conditions, with quantum-based standards, whose values are intrinsically accurate and can be reproduced anywhere. Many technological advances in junction fabrication, superconducting integrated circuit technology, bias techniques, and instrumentation were required to achieve the present generation of practical ac and dc voltage standard systems. Quantum-based 10 V programmable Josephson voltage standards and 2 V rms Josephson arbitrary waveform synthesizers are now used in a wide range of metrology applications, calibration laboratories and precision measurement experiments. For metrology, these systems are used for measuring dc and ac voltage, ac power, and impedance. They are also key instruments in precision measurement experiments of mass and temperature to determine more accurate values of the Planck and Boltzmann constants. I will review major technological advances with a focus on the superconducting devices and circuits and describe the current state-of-the-art research and development in superconductive analog and digital circuits that may lead to improved precision measurement of voltage and low-distortion signals for rf communications.
The nearly 80-year-old correlated electron problem remains largely unsolved; with one stunning success being BCS electron-phonon mediated "conventional" superconductivity. There are dozens of families of superconductors that are "unconventional" including the high-Tc cuprate, iron-based, and heavy fermion superconductors. Although these materials are disparate in many properties, some of their fundamental properties are strikingly similar, including their ubiquitous phase diagram in which the superconductivity emerges near a magnetic phase transition and some very strange electronic phases that arise in the non-superconducting states. A recent research direction is towards the fundamental understanding of these phases in the hopes to predictively design higher-Tc, Jc, and practical new superconductors.
The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity by Bednorz and Muller in 1986 inaugurated a new era for research, from both fundamental physics and application perspectives. With Tc routinely around 100 K (the record is 160 K) and Bc2 reaching into tens or even hundreds of Tesla, the technological significance of HTS appeared clear from the very beginning. However, scientists had to face many difficulties to develop these materials in a useful conductor form, and yet only three Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8-x, Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10-x and REBa2Cu3O7-x (RE = rare earth) are available commercially. The grand challenges revolve around the complexity of making high Jc in polycrystalline materials, because of the intrinsic electronic anisotropy and of the great current blocking effects of randomly oriented grain boundaries. This review describes many aspects of the development and property evolution in HTS conductors together with the progress in practical applications.
The discovery of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) thirty years ago was heralded with great anticipation to enable a broad range of potential applications. However, applications of HTS electronics are dependent on high-quality Josephson junctions that have controllable transport parameters with high reproducibility in YBCO. A number of different technologies for junctions have been developed with a few (bicrystal, ion beam bombardment and step edge junctions) being effective. Based on these junctions, a number of device applications have been successfully deployed and in some cases commercialized. Starting with devices with no junctions such as filters for telecommunications, single junctions such as in bow-tie antennas and RF SQUIDs, two junctions for DC SQUIDs for magnetometers, gradiometers and a number of different detectors such for terahertz and most recently arrays of thousands of SQUIDs for SQIFs. This talk will overview the development of the HTS Josephson junctions in YBCO with a view to what is needed to achieve mass market application and adoption. Then I will review the most successful applications of HTs devices in filters, magnetometers and gradiometers for mineral exploration, metal in food detection, biomedical, defense and array antennas. The talk will finish with the need for standards and the ability to model devices to enable commercial foundry manufacture enabling the realization of the thirty-year dream.
Huge heat generation from logic circuits limits the performance of recent high-end computing systems, and their large power consumption becomes a social problem nowadays. Superconducting computing has potential to overcome the problem due to its extremely low-energy consumption with very high performance. In this presentation we will show recent progresses of low-energy high-performance superconducting computing. After the review of current research activities in Japan as well as in the world, we will show the ultimate-low-energy superconducting computing technology based on adiabatic and reversible operation of logic. It is emphasized that the superconducting logic is the technology that breaks through the thermal limit in computation.
In this talk from the Applied Superconductivity Conference 2016, Michael Benedikt summarizes the motivation and the present status of the Future Circular Collider study. He also covers the major design challenges and technology R&D topics for the accelerators. The global Future Circular Collider (FCC) study is developing a 100-TeV hadron collider (FCC-hh) in a new 100 km long tunnel, i.e. about four times larger than the operating Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The FCC study also includes the design of a high-luminosity electron-positron collider (FCC-ee), which could be installed in the same tunnel as a potential intermediate step, a lepton-hadron collider option (FCC-he), as well as an energy upgrade of the LHC (HE-LHC), using the FCC-hh technology. The scope of the FCC study comprises accelerators, technology, infrastructure, detectors, physics, international governance models, and implementation scenarios. Among the FCC core technologies figure beyond-state-of-the-art 16 T dipole magnets, based on some 6000 tons of advanced Nb3Sn superconductor, as well as highly efficient superconducting radiofrequency systems for all collider scenarios. Use of HTS and MgB2 cables is also considered for special magnets and SC links. The international FCC study is hosted by CERN and mandated to deliver a Conceptual Design Report together with a preliminary cost estimate by end 2018. Since February 2014, more than 75 institutes from 26 countries and four continents have joined the FCC collaboration.
2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the discovery of .high temperature superconductivity in the cuprates so it is natural to ask how they are doing. In fact the LTS conductors, Nb-Ti and Nb 3Sn have more widespread application than ever and their market has not in any way been negatively harmed by HTS. At first this was because HTS was seen as the vehicle for an entirely separate industry in electro-technology operating at ~77 K or more recently in the 30-40 K range. Almost all elements of the electric utility network have been demonstrated with HTS (and a few with LTS too) but an application-pull market of the type that MRI, NMR, and accelerators provide for LTS has not developed. One reason is that HTS conductor costs are still several times those of LTS in any application where either could serve. Only this year can we expect HTS magnets, always so far the dominant application of any superconductor, in domains where LTS cannot compete. A second drawback for use of HTS is the strong architectural limitations imposed on conductors by the suppressed superfluid densities of HTS grain boundaries. Fabrication routes for HTS conductors are thus complex and emphasize strong shape texture (Coated conductors and Bi-2223) or require complex heat treatments to develop growth-induced texture as in round wire Bi-2212. With the expected delivery of an LTS/HTS (REBCO coated Conductor) hybrid magnet generating 32 T for users of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in mid-2016, perhaps a new application field will emerge. However, the huge costs of all HTS conductors (in the $100-200,000 per liter range) mean that we must exploit lower cost materials that could also offer the twisted, round-wire, multifilament architecture of Nb-Ti and Nb3Sn. Here MgB2 and K-doped BaFe2As2 conductors both offer promise for use in the 4-30 K range, especially if fundamental science improvements to Hc2 of MgB2 and to the connectivity of polycrystalline (K,Ba)Fe2As2 can be made. For the even more adventurous we should note that the highest Tc superconductor (203 K) is now a modified metallic hydrogen, based on solidifying H2S under about 150 GPa. And finally, we return to the RE-123 compounds can new processing routes generate conductors capable of mimicking round wires (e.g. the Cable on Round Core concept CORC) at high enough Jc and low enough costs to provide an all-purpose Nb-Ti conductor capable of generating fields of a few teslas at 65-77K? These are some of the challenges addressed in this talk.
The Superconducting Maglev (SCMAGLEV) is a next-generation transportation system that levitates and accelerates by the magnetic force generated between the onboard superconducting magnets and the coils attached to the guideway, enabling stable ultra-high speed operation at a speed of 500 km/h (311 mph). This cutting-edge technology is currently developed by JR Central, a railway company in Japan operating the Tokaido Shinkansen and surrounding conventional lines. The SCMAGLEV uses linear synchronous motor (LSM) for propulsion and electro-dynamic suspension (EDS) for levitation and guidance. The key component of this system is the onboard superconducting magnet, which houses niobium-titanium alloy cooled by liquid helium at -269°C (-452°F). By adopting powerful and energy efficient superconducting magnet, SCMAGLEV can levitate with a large air gap of 10 cm (4 in) and thus can safely operate at an ultra-high speed in the earthquake-prone Japan. Research on a linear motor propulsion magnetically levitated railway system began in 1962 in Japan. From 1997, running tests are conducted on the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line (18.4 km or 11.4 miles), and implemented various tests including multiple train operation tests, high-speed passing tests, one-day continuous running tests, etc. On December 2003, the world speed record of 581 km/h (361 mph) is achieved with a manned vehicle. In July 2009, the Maglev Technological Practicality Evaluation Committee under the Japanese government has acknowledged that “the technologies of the Superconducting Maglev have been established comprehensively and systematically.” JR Central is currently promoting a new high-speed line called Chuo Shinkansen with using SCMAGLEV system. As a bypass route to the current Tokaido Shinkansen, the Chuo Shinkansen will connect Japan’s principal metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. It is planned to start revenue operation between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 and further extension to Osaka in 2045, and the travel time between Tokyo to Osaka will be shortened to 67 minutes where current Tokaido Shinkansen takes 2 hours and 30 minutes. In 2011, MLIT designated JR Central as the operator and constructor of the Chuo Shinkansen and instructed to construct. JR Central is now promoting the assessment of environmental impact, and after completion of the assessment procedure, the actual construction will take place. Meanwhile, running tests on the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line were temporarily suspended from September 2011 for full renewal and extension to a length of 42.8 km (26.6 miles). From August 2013, running test has resumed with a new vehicle called Series L0 (L zero), which is the first generation SCMAGLEV rolling stock that is designed to meet the revenue service specifications. We will present the development of the SCMAGLEV and the recent progress on the Chuo Shinkansen development toward revenue service.
