8/21/2026 at 3:38:20 AM
I found it odd that they call it high-temperature, but then perform all their experiments at 4.2 K. Also, at 4.2 K, the magnet performs worse than established Nb-Ti technology, so it doesn't seem to be a significant advancement.by human_llm
8/21/2026 at 8:38:50 AM
In true HN haven't RTFA (apparently Cloudfare has banned my IP address from the APS's website for overuse...) but even if the critical surface of Bc / Ic / Tc is similar, there can still be a massive engineering advantage to a new material for other reasons.One of the major difficulties with manufacturing large magnets out of existing technologies like Nb-Ti or Nb3Sn (which is used for ultrahigh field) is the welds. You need O(100 km) of superconductor with no defects embedded in a copper or bronze matrix (for taking the quench current and mechanical support). As you probably know, these are made by taking a block of copper (or bronze), drilling out holes in it, putting in rods of e.g. ultrapure Nb3Sn in Nb sleeves, and then drawing it under very controlled conditions. The metals have to be pure because work hardening around defects is definitely a thing, and you do not want an unknown break in the wire, ready to become resistive and take O(0.1-1 kA) currents.
This is "specialised" to put it mildly and joining a broken wire is somewhere on a scale from impossible to bloody difficult -- traditionally think lovely solutions like Piranha or HF, and words like "cold welding". Only recently have people started to get TIG like hot welding techniques to work -- but then you have a difficult problem anyway because it is analogous to joining something like a 28 core cable where one dodgy connection can cause what is effectively a controlled explosion.
by azalemeth
8/21/2026 at 12:14:20 PM
This strikes me as very interesting problem. On the other hand, given it survives the drawing process and is relatively isotropic, I'm surprised that it can't be crimped/compressed together (and then the copper casing tigged or external mechanical fastener applied).by skew-aberration
8/21/2026 at 7:44:21 AM
In applications like NMR or MRI you still want to cool down your superconductors as much as possible even if they can handle higher temperatures. As far as I understand this still increases the amount of current they can handle and so increases the maximum field.The largest commercially available NMR spectrometer has 28 Tesla, and that is a hybrid magnet with both conventional superconductors and high-temperature superconductors. And it's cooled with liquid helium.
by fabian2k
8/21/2026 at 3:45:55 AM
High-temperature superconductor refers to the critical temperature at zero field. But the crucial field decreases sharply with temperature, so the superconducting phase appears concave on a T–B phase diagram. Therefore, in order to operate superconducting magnets at high field, liquid helium is necessary irrespective of the superconducting transition temperature (critical temperature).by scythe
8/21/2026 at 7:02:45 AM
Liquid hydrogen cooled superconductors (20K) would be good especially if we manage to use some materials that don't suffer hydrogen embrittlement processed/machined economically enough to really play out the cost benefits of not relying on the rare noble gas.by namibj
8/21/2026 at 8:04:13 AM
wouldn't it make that much more dangerous?by _davide_
8/21/2026 at 9:37:19 AM
yes... the only advantage of Hydrogen I can imagine is the abundance, for the rest I see only downsides. Helium is relatively abundant and technically renewable: it's a byproduct of gas extraction, since it's continuously produced by the alpha-nuclear decay inside the earth. Of course doesn't mean the offer is adequate with the market request, especially after the Hormuz crisisby YakBizzarro