A September 15, 2006 Physics World article entitled “Slow Death for a Hot Topic“ described a recent prediction of the end of high-Tc superconductivity (HTS) research within four years, based on a linear extrapolation of recent trends in the numbers of chemistry and physics publications. While the article relates principally to copper oxide research, it has been erroneously interpreted by some as pertaining to applications as well. This prediction is hardly worth the discussion it has generated in the community.
A recent workshop, sponsored by the Basic Energy Sciences Division of the U.S. DOE, in May of this year highlighted the exciting grand challenges which now face the fundamental superconductivity field: uncovering the underlying mechanism of HTS, accelerating the discovery of new materials through the vastly more powerful simulation and characterization tools now available, and identifying and quantifying pinning and grain boundary mechanisms which determine HTS supercurrent limits.

In addition, the field of superconductivity is making its second epic transition from a focus on fundamental materials issues to applications. This happened first after the Abrikosov’s discovery of vortices and vortex lattices in 1957, underpinning the development of NbTi and Nb3Sn conductors that are the basis for the vital MRI and high energy physics magnet industries today. And now the progress in HTS materials science is underpinning the development of HTS conductors as a basis for a new generation of critically needed electric power equipment.

Evidence of this progress can be seen worldwide with 10 HTS power cable projects underway and/or energized around the world. In August 2006, one of these cables was energized in Albany New York grid; another cable was powered up in the Columbus Ohio grid just a few days after the Physics World article appeared. And in spring 2007, an in-grid transmission voltage HTS cable will be energized by the Long Island Power Authority.

Major progress is occurring in rotating machinery as well. To name just a few of the technologies that American Superconductor is developing: the U.S. Navy will later this year test a 36.5MW (49,000 horsepower) HTS motor for next generation warships, and we are also filling orders for a pioneering HTS-based product, our 12MVAR synchronous condenser.

These are just a few of the many areas where HTS is being successfully applied. In addition to the large scale devices such as power equipment and magnets under development by dozens of companies around the world, we are seeing increasing levels of success with HTS electronics for applications ranging from communications to sensors.

These are the driving forces which will determine the future of the superconductivity field, not some simplistic statistical extrapolation from the past chemistry and physics literature!

Other Headlines inside Superconductor Week issue 2020:

NSA Proposes $400 Million Superconducting Computer Project
   >> Exclusive Interview with Theodore Van Duzer of UC Berkeley
   Government Funding Essential to Project
   NSA Report Cites Financial and Technological Reasons for RSFQ Computer
   Memory, Connections, Manufacture Present Technical Challenges
   Risk Levels Assessed
   Project Would Bring RSFQ Chip Manufacturing Capabilities Back to U.S.
Chubu Electric Operates Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) Unit at Sharp's New Factory
   Demonstration of Faster-Charging SMES Planned for 2007
   Kameyama Boasts Other Energy Innovations
Statistical Analysis Projects All HTS Research Will Cease by 2015
   >> Exclusive Interview with Werner Marx of Max Planck Institute
   >> Interviews with Paul Grant of W2AGZ Technologies, Paul Chu of the Texas Center for Superconductivity, Greg Yurek of American Superconductor
   Paper's Authors Challenge Death of Superconductivity Interpretation
   Experts Challenge Marx and Barth Study
   Future of Applications Not Implicated
Southwire and nkt cable's HTS Cable Energized at Columbus
   Bixby Cable Marks Ultera's Third HTS Cable
OP-ED: "High Tc Superconductivity Making Epic Transition: Life, Not Death, for Superconductivity"
   >> by Alex Malozemoff of American Superconductor
INSERT: U.S. Superconductivity Patents