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There's trade offs to everything. Just because it can't be extruded into wire doesn't mean it can't be cast for example. If it's not ductile it can maybe be s

There's trade offs to everything. Just because it can't be extruded into wire doesn't mean it can't be cast for example. If it's not ductile it can maybe be supported by a more rigid structure. It totally depends on the application and how you work around the trade offs. Considering the alternative is supercooling helium and the dealing with the issues of containing such a small atom, managing the fragility of a room temperature superconductor may have huge beneficial trade offs

jacquesm 3y ago
Usually flexibility is a function of how thin you can make something and what physical shape it has. You can shape it such that it becomes less flexible (think I beam for an example) or you can shape it so that it becomes more flexible (think foil). It's all the same material but the mechanical properties can be quite different. Practical use superconductor material is typically in a ribbon form, this allows for relatively easy shaping along one axis and still allows you to connect to it in a (relatively) simple way. An extra advantage of using a ribbon like conductor is that it allows for very close spacing without much loss in packing. Think 'oranges' versus 'boxes'.