4 ms·

I think so far the ReBCO tape is manufactured in small quantities by a handful of suppliers. If there were million-dollar orders coming in regularly, I suppose

by elihu 5y ago

I think so far the ReBCO tape is manufactured in small quantities by a handful of suppliers. If there were million-dollar orders coming in regularly, I suppose there'd be a lot of competition to develop the highest quality product. I expect it'd be like batteries; there's a lot of incremental improvements, and then once in awhile a major chemistry change. There's probably other high-temperature superconductors just waiting to be invented. If I remember right from one of the videos from the SPARC reactor folks, they were experimenting with not bothering with insulation between the magnet windings. The ReBCO film is bonded to a layer of stainless steel, and they figured the conductivity of the film is so much better than stainless steel that they wouldn't actually get much loss from current leaking through. That seems kind of crazy, but I guess there's a lot of things about superconducting materials that don't behave intuitively. Maybe manufacturers can make film that's bonded to a thinner layer of stainless steel or whatever, and thus allow for more windings in the same space?

fabian2k 5y ago
I've visited a company that produces classical and high-temperature superconductors, though this was quite a few years back. I don't know the exact market size, but the MRI and NMR markets are probably not that small, though they use almost entirely classical superconductors right now. But they have hit the physical limits of classical superconductors in NMR, and the first NMRs with high-temperature superconductors are produced and sold now. So there might be some more development there even without the fusion angle. One purpose of the support material that isn't super-conducting is thermal protection. If your superconducter quenches, you have to dissipate the energy contained in it without destroying the magnet. In classical ones they use copper wire around them as far as I remember, and the high-temperature ones are a very thin film of ReBCO deposited on metal tape, so the actual superconductor is always a small part of the material.

by elihu 5y ago

fabian2k 5y ago

I've visited a company that produces classical and high-temperature superconductors, though this was quite a few years back. I don't know the exact market size, but the MRI and NMR markets are probably not that small, though they use almost entirely classical superconductors right now. But they have hit the physical limits of classical superconductors in NMR, and the first NMRs with high-temperature superconductors are produced and sold now. So there might be some more development there even without the fusion angle. One purpose of the support material that isn't super-conducting is thermal protection. If your superconducter quenches, you have to dissipate the energy contained in it without destroying the magnet. In classical ones they use copper wire around them as far as I remember, and the high-temperature ones are a very thin film of ReBCO deposited on metal tape, so the actual superconductor is always a small part of the material.