High-Temperature Superconducting Magnets and Conductors for Fusion, Imaging, and Power
This community develops superconducting materials and magnet systems for high-field applications, including fusion energy, medical imaging, and electrical power transmission.
The work centers on high-temperature superconducting (HTS) materials, specifically REBCO coated conductors and MgB2 wires, designed to carry high critical currents in strong magnetic fields. Research focuses on the mechanical integrity of these conductors under electromagnetic stress, flux pinning mechanisms, and the engineering of large-scale magnet systems. Key applications include toroidal field coils for fusion tokamaks, high-field MRI scanners, and superconducting electrical machines. The literature also covers the cryogenic systems required to maintain these materials in their superconducting state, as well as the electromagnetic modeling needed to predict current distribution and loss in complex coil geometries.
The community is most prominent in niobium research, accounting for 7.8% of all niobium papers, and yttrium research, representing 4.6% of that element’s output. It also contributes significantly to helium research, comprising 2.7% of the total.
The community comprises 28,889 papers, published primarily in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, Superconductor Science and Technology, and Physica C Superconductivity.
Recent work continues to focus on the mechanical behavior of REBCO coils in ultra-high fields, the development of high-current cables for fusion applications, and the characterization of flux trapping in superconducting electronics.