The materials
Cuprate
A family of copper-oxide ceramics that includes every superconductor that runs on liquid nitrogen. They were discovered in 1986 and they still hold the ambient-pressure record.
Why cuprate matters
They are brittle ceramics, so turning one into something a magnet can be wound from is a manufacturing problem as much as a materials one.
Where cuprate comes up
Cuprate in a real conductor
- REBCOA layer of rare-earth barium copper oxide a few microns thick, grown on a metal tape, and the conductor that made a compact fusion magnet credible.
- Bi-2212The one high-temperature superconductor that can be made as a round, isotropic wire, and the reason it exists inside the strongest research magnets in the world.
Related to cuprate
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 have a device and a constraint it has to meet, tell us about it.