Research Highlights

Introduction

The rate of progress towards practical applications of high temperature superconductors (HTS) continues to be very rapid. BSCCO tapes are now commercially available for use in the Superconductivity Partnership with Industry (SPI) projects and other prototype power demonstrations. Second-generation coated conductors continue to display very high critical currents in long lengths when cooled with liquid nitrogen indicative of the future potential for wide spread use in power applications. The SPI projects including the three transmission cable initiatives, fault current limiter, generator, flywheel, and motor, are all exciting. The national laboratories are proud to have played important roles in advancing these technical successes.

LANL continued to demonstrate leadership in coated conductor development by achieving world records for the highest critical currents achieved at liquid nitrogen temperature. New, unique tape processing and characterization capabilities have been developed at the Research Park that are now available to other national labs, universities, and industrial collaborators.

LANL continued strong partnerships with Superpower and American Superconductor in second-generation wire development focusing on the IBAD MgO technology. These collaborations have been extremely beneficial in accelerating their progress towards commercialization of coated conductors. Our expertise in evaluating vortex pinning in superconductor tapes as a function of magnetic field and angle was shown to be very valuable. LANL contributions towards characterizing and minimizing ac losses in coated conductors have been substantial.

LANL continues to be a CRADA partner with American Superconductor in the Wire Development Group, now focusing on advancing further improvement of properties of coated conductor tapes. Previously, the WDG efforts had been on Bi2223 tape, because the current SPI cable projects rely primarlly on these Bi2223 tapes with superconducting properties appropriate for the application. Our contributions in tape processing combined with both microscopic and superconducting characterizations (of both Bi2223 and now coated conductor tapes) have been critical to continued technical advancements in this area.

LANL continued in a strong partnership with General Electric focused on a 100 MVA HTS SPI generator. We also supported all of the SPI projects through our role on the SPI Readiness Review Program.

Dean E. Peterson, Leader
Superconductivity Technology Center

Technical highlights are listed below.

2005 Annual Report.pdf
2004 Annual Report.pdf

Recent Presentations

The following are the presentations from the 2006 DOE Peer Review . As such they reflect the STC progress on these programs by the Summer of 2006. Like last year, many of the presentations this year are joint presentations-we list the presenters and major collaborators on each project. This year we list them in the categories that reflect the sessions at the Peer Review.

Strategic Research:

Vortex Pinning.pdf (4.1 Mb)
Understanding and pushing the limits of critical current in coated conductors: Expanding the set of tools for investigating and improving vortex pinning. Maiorov/LANL

Critical Currents.pdf (2.9 Mb)
Understanding and pushing the limits of critical current in coated conductors: Investigating thickness dependence of Jc . Foltyn/LANL, Civale/LANL

IBAD Texturing.pdf (6.3 Mb)
New directions in IBAD texturing. Matias/LANL

Fluorine-Free HTS Materials.pdf (8.7 Mb)
Deposition of fluorine-free HTS Materials: Coevaporation of YBCO. Hammond/Stanford, Christen/ORNL, Storer/LANL

Superconducting Partnerships with Industry (SPI):

Readiness Review.pdf (0.5 Mb)
SPI Readiness Reviews. Gouge/ORNL, Ashworth/LANL, Bakke/DOE-Golden

GE Generator.pdf (0.8 Mb)
GE HTS Generator Development. Schmierer/LANL

Second Generation Tapes

Wire Development.pdf (16.9 Mb)
American Superconductor Wire Development Group. Miller/ANL, Holesinger/LANL, Feldmann/Univ. Wisconsin, Rupich/AMSC

Multi-Scale Characterization.pdf (14.5 Mb)
Multi-scale characterization of 2nd generation HTS wire. Holesinger/LANL, Civale/LANL

2005

The following are the presentations from the 2005 DOE Peer Review . As such they reflect the STC progress on these programs by the Summer of 2005. Like last year, many of the presentations this year are joint presentations-we list the presenters and major collaborators on each project. This year we list them in the categories that reflect the sessions at the Peer Review.

Strategic Research:

High Rate E-Beam YBCO Process on Tape (PDF - 4.4 Mb)
Storer/LANL, Hamond/Stanford
Controlling AC losses in Coated Conductors (PDF – 1.1 Mb)
Grilli/LANL, Ashworth/LANL
Wire Development Progress (all presentations – PDF – 28.1 Mb)
AMSC/LANL/ Argonne/Oak Ridge/Univ. Wisconsin
Wire Development Progress (LANL presentation only – PDF – 8.6 Mb)
Holesinger/LANL
Performance Enhancement of YBCO-MgO Coated Conductors (PDF – 2.9 Mb)
Foltyn, Civale/LANL, Driscoll/Univ. Cambridge, Mantei/Univ. Wisconsin
Improving Performance and Reducing Costs of Producing Coated Conductors –
LANL – SuperPower CRADA (PDF – 14.9 Mb)