Applications
Where superconductors are used
19 fields, and 11 of them are running somewhere today. Each page says what superconductivity buys there, and what is still stopping it.
Most of this already exists. The ones that do not are marked, and they are marked because a design nobody can build should never be written as though it does. The conductors behind these are on Materials, and all nineteen sit side by side in the map on Reference.
Medicine
In service today
MRIMost scanners are superconducting magnets. More than 30,000 are installed.
In service today
Particle therapyA superconducting gantry brought a heavy-ion treatment room from 600 tonnes down to about 300.
In service today
NMR spectrometersThe magnet that resolves a protein structure runs at a few kelvin.
In service today
Biomagnetic sensingSQUIDs read the magnetic field of brain activity through the skull.
Energy and the grid
In service today
Transmission cableIn the ground under Shanghai, Essen and Long Island. Rare because of the cold.
In service today
Fault-current limitersGoes normal in a millisecond and swallows a short circuit.
Built and demonstrated
Wind generatorsA 3.6 MW superconducting rotor ran on a Danish turbine for 650 hours.
Built and demonstrated
Magnetic energy storageCurrent parked in a loop and handed back in milliseconds, for power quality.
Compute and sensing
Built and demonstrated
Quantum computersMost of the largest processors are superconducting circuits, held near absolute zero.
In service today
Photon countingSuperconducting nanowires count single photons for quantum links and lidar.
Waiting on a material
Superconducting logicSwitching at a fraction of the energy of silicon. Demonstrated for decades, never volume-made.
In service today
Telescope detectorsSensors that measure one photon by the heat it leaves behind.
Transport
Built and demonstrated
MaglevJapan’s superconducting maglev reached 603 km/h on a test track.
Waiting on a material
Electric aircraftA megawatt motor light enough to fly needs a cryostat that survives a wing.
Built and demonstrated
Ship propulsionA 36.5 MW superconducting motor was built and tested for naval use.
Science and heavy industry
In service today
Particle accelerators1,232 superconducting dipoles bend the beam around 27 km at CERN.
Built and demonstrated
Fusion magnetsTwenty tesla, and the reason a compact tokamak is credible at all.
In service today
Magnetic separationHigh-gradient magnets pull iron out of clay at industrial rates.
In service today
Induction heatingHeats a metal billet far more efficiently than a copper coil.
Nothing on these pages is ours. Every line is somebody else’s published result, cited on the page that carries it. What we build is on Platform.