Science and heavy industry · Built and demonstrated
Fusion magnets
Twenty tesla, and the reason a compact tokamak is credible at all.
The record behind fusion magnets
A 20 tesla magnet for a compact tokamak · MITSuperconductors in fusion magnets
Fusion power in a tokamak rises very steeply with magnetic field, far faster than it rises with the size of the machine, so doubling the field is worth much more than building bigger. That relationship is why a twenty-tesla high-temperature coil reset the schedule of an entire industry when it was demonstrated: it moved the design point from a machine the size of ITER to one that can be built in a few years. It is the clearest example on this site of a materials result changing what an industry believes is possible.
What is stopping fusion magnets
Tape, in quantity, at a price. A compact tokamak’s magnets consume thousands of kilometers of high-temperature conductor, and world production is the binding constraint on how many machines get built. Behind that sits quench detection: a magnet of this kind stores enormous energy and spreads a normal zone slowly, so noticing that one has started is a research program in its own right.
What a better material would change for fusion magnets
Every compact tokamak on a drawing board is a bet on tape supply. A conductor that made the same field for less per kiloamp-meter, or that could be manufactured in far greater length, would change how many machines get built more than any plasma-physics result would.
Conductors used in fusion magnets
Near fusion magnets, in science and heavy industry
SuperMatics is a platform infrastructure company for superconducting devices: software that finds the material and the process, lab work that makes and measures it, and pilot manufacturing with industrial partners.If you are working on something in this field and a material is what stands in the way, tell us about it.