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Applications of High‐Temperature Superconductors Approach the Marketplace

MAR 01, 1995
Eight years after transition temperatures first exceeded that of liquid nitrogen, high‐Tc superconductors are being used in magnetometer sensors, prototype filters for cellular‐phone base stations and magnetic resonance applications. Further progress in thin‐film technology and electronics could lead to applications for high‐Tc materials such as nondestructive testing, medical and geophysical sensors, communications, and multichip modules.

When high‐temperature superconductivity reached temperatures above that of liquid nitrogen eight years ago, thousands of researchers jumped in, lots of funding followed, and the most enthusiastic people talked of magnetically levitated trains, computers and motors all soon to be operating above 77 K. When reality set in a couple of years later, the field settled into a large, active one, but with only the simplest of products being proposed for the following few years. (See the June 1991 special issue of PHYSICS TODAY on high‐temperature superconductivity.)

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 48, Number 3

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