New superconductor world record reached: Why we care

“Superconductor” isn’t just a fancy engineering term that doesn’t affect the public. Superconductors are in a ton of technology and have future impact in many areas as well. So when a superconductor record is broken, it may affect the public more than we realize.

For over 10 years, the record for a trapped field inside a superconductor has stood solid, but now a team of University of Cambridge engineers has successfully broken it harnessing the equivalent of three tons of force inside a golf-ball-sized sample of material that’s as delicate as fine china.

A bulk superconductor levitated by a permanent magnet (Image via University of Cambridge)

What exactly is a superconductor?

Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with little or no resistance when cooled below a certain temperature. Traditionally this cooling temperature is close to absolute zero, but there are also high-temperature superconductors in existence that superconduct above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (-320°F), making them even easier to cool and cheaper to operate.

What did they do?

The researchers “trapped” a magnetic field with a strength of 17.6 Tesla (100 times stronger than the field produced by a magnet on your refrigerator) inside a high-temperature gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBCO) superconductor beating the previous world record by 0.4 Tesla.

The previous record (17.24 Tesla) was set in 2003 by a team from the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan.

So, what does this mean?

What the team did was prove the potential of high-temperature superconductors in so many applications including levitating trains, mineral refinement, pollution control, and fly wheels for energy storage. Right now, superconductors are used in a variety of applications, such as MRI scanners and engineering tools, but now there’s even more potential. 

The future of superconductors lies in protecting the national grid and increasing energy efficiency since superconductors can carry large amounts of electrical current without losing energy.

For an in-depth look at how the record was broken, visit the University of Cambridge website.