High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) Cable for Fusion Systems

The DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) seeks innovative and advanced superconducting materials that have a high potential for improved conductor performance and low fabrication costs to achieve safe, reliable, economic, and environmentally-benign operation of fusion energy systems. OFES is interested in materials such as Bi-2212, MgB2 with properties that allow for operation near 20K, or YBCO conductors that are easily adaptable to bundling into high current cables carrying 30 - 60 kA. Bi-2212, MgB2 and YBCO, with their high critical temperatures, both provide the opportunity to operate devices at higher cryogenic temperatures allowing for the use of alternative, cost effective and simpler technologies than liquid helium alone. Bi-2212, MgB2 and YBCO both have the potential for being radiation resistant. MgB2 offers the possibility of being fabricated in long-length multifilamentary strands that can be formed into cables from inexpensive starting materials using conventional metalworking processes..Round-Bi-2212 wire can be fabricated into Rutherford and cable-in