Special Issue

Superconductivity〉〉Opening Remarks

Superconducting Technologyin Furukawa Electric Group
Akira Fujisaki *In order to build a sustainable world and make people’s
life safe, peaceful and rewarding, Furukawa ElectricGroup will create solutions for the new generation ofglobal infrastructure combining information, energy andmobility. This is the Furukawa Electric Group Vision 2030
established in 2018, which shows the visionary outlookthat Furukawa Electric aims to achieve by 2030. Since
then, our R&D has strengthened our core businesses andsupported their transformation. It has also promoted thecreation of new businesses that solve social issues thatwork by combining our core businesses.
The theme of this issue of Furukawa Electric Review issuperconducting technologies. These are important technologies that we have been working on since the first halfof the 1960s. And they are at the core of the energy sector, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality in theMedium-term Management Plan announced in May 2022.
Superconducting technologies are garnering more andmore attention as important technologies for buildingcore energy infrastructure in order to realize a sustainable
society in the future.
Superconductivity is a phenomenon in which the electrical resistance becomes zero below a certain temperature, which is known as the critical temperature. If wires
are made of materials that exhibit this phenomenon, hugeelectric currents can be conducted without energy loss.
And by winding coils using superconducting wires, ultrastrong electromagnets not possible with conventional
copper wires can be realized.
The discovery of the Higgs boson, which led to theNobel Prize in Physics in 2013, was carried out using theLarge Hadron Collider at the European Organization forNuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The
core components of the accelerator—ultra-high magnetic
field electromagnets—were made from niobium-based
metal superconducting wires, which are low-temperature
superconducting wires from Furukawa Electric based on
our metal technologies developed at Nikko Works suchas oxygen-free copper and stranding technologies.
In addition to academia, superconducting wires are
already playing critical roles in various industrial sectors.
These include: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diag*nostic equipment in the field of medicine; nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) equipment in the fields of foodsafety, drug development, and virus analysis; next-generation high-speed transportation systems using magneticlevitation; and crystal growth equipment in the field ofsemiconductor manufacturing. Products using superconducting coils with strong magnetic fields, such as nuclear
fusion, have been put into practical use, and we are moving forward with the development of further next-generation products.
The high-temperature superconductivity phenomenon
was discovered in the 1980s, and the commercializationof such wire materials was realized in the early 2000s.
Further improvements in performance continue tobe made. Furukawa Electric’s 100% US subsidiary
SuperPower Inc. (SPI) is developing and commercializing
this oxide high-temperature superconducting wire material. With the completion and operation of a new plant in2020, SPI has begun to further accelerate its efforts toincrease the performance of its wire materials andexpand its mass production capacity. In 2022, Furukawa
Electric and SPI signed a memorandum of understanding
with Tokamak Energy Ltd. in the UK, and began supplying
high-temperature superconducting wire materials to beused in the development and prototyping of compact
fusion reactors led by Tokamak Energy.
Tokamak Energy has a mission to deliver clean, sustainable, low cost, and globally available energy throughthe early realization of commercial fusion reactors. This isconsistent with the social issues and solutions outlined in
the Furukawa Electric Group Vision 2030. We are a rarecompany globally that possesses both low-temperatureand high-temperature superconducting wire materialproducts. And by taking advantage of this unique position, Furukawa Electric will continue to take on new challenges in the next stage of research and development inorder to further develop superconducting technologies.
We are pleased to present this special issue, whichhighlights the potential of our Group's superconducting
technologies.
We hope you will take a look and enjoy the contents.

Corporate Vice President, General Manager, Research & Development Division

Furukawa Electric Review, No. 55 20241