Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

What’s New in the World of Superconductivity(October, 2010)
Akihiko Tsutai, Director
International Affairs Division, ISTEC

Power
American Superconductor Corporation (October 5, 2010)
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) has introduced a new brand name for its proprietary
second-generation HTS wire. Previously known as “344 superconductors,” the new brand
name—Amperium™—reflects the wire’s ability to conduct more than 100 times the electrical current (or“amperage”) of a copper wire with the same dimensions. A single Amperium wire is capable of carrying
enough power to serve the needs of approximately 10,000 U.S. homes. This high power density enables adramatic reduction in the footprint and cost of large-scale electrical equipment, such as power cables andwind generators.
AMSC expects the demand for Amperium wire to increase significantly in the near future. The Korea
Electric Power Company (KEPCO) expects the widespread deployment of superconductor power cables in
the Korean power grid beginning around 2012-2013, and LS Cable Ltd. (Korea) has already utilized
Amperium wire to manufacture the first power cable system for Korea’s commercial grid. In the U.S.,
Amperium wire is being used by Nexans to produce an extension of the superconductor powertransmission cable system that has been operating in the Long Island Power Authority’s (LIPA) primary
power corridor since April 2008. The Tres Amigas SuperStation, which aims to connect America’s three
power grids, is also expected to use Amperium wire. Other anticipated applications include FaultBlocker™
surge-suppressing power cables and fault current limiters for city grids, electric generators for AMSC’s
SeaTitan™ superconductor wind turbines, large electric motors, and degaussing systems for the U.S.
Navy.
Source:“American Superconductor Introduces Amperium™ Wire”
American Superconductor Corporation press release (October 5. 2010)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1478979&highlight
American Superconductor Corporation (October 6, 2010)
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) has received the world’s largest order for HTS wire:
LS Cable Ltd. (Korea) has placed an order for 3 million meters of Amperium™ wire to be used in alternating
current (AC) and direct current (DC) superconductor cable projects. AMSC will begin shipments ofAmperium wire to LS cable starting in 2012. Jong-ho Son, President of LS Cable, commented, “Ourobjective is to be the leading provider of superconductor power cables for electric utilities worldwide. ThisAmperium wire contract helps ensure we will have the wire we need to complete the superconductor cableprojects we have underway with KEPCO in Korea and also take on commercial project opportunities
globally such as Tres Amigas in the U.S.” The present contract builds on a long-standing relationship
Extra December, 2010

© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-1-Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

between AMSC and LS Cable, in which the two companies have agreed to collaborate on the deploymentof more than 50 circuit kilometers of superconductor power cables (including distribution and transmission
voltages as well as AC and DC systems) in commercial power grids by the end of 2015. AMSC President
and Chief Operating Officer Dan McGahn commented, "With this commercial wire order, American
Superconductor has officially begun to tap into what we believe will be a multi-billion-dollar HTS market.”
Source:“American Superconductor Receives 3 Million Meter Amperium™ Wire Order from Korea’s LS Cable Ltd.”
American Superconductor Corporation press release (October 6, 2010)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1479536&highlight
American Superconductor Corporation (October 12, 2010)
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) had announced the launch of its SolarTie Grid
Interconnection Solution, which combines AMSC’s D-VAR® STATCOM solutions and PowerModule™
power converter systems to realize a utility-scale grid interconnection system designed specifically formegawatt-scale solar photovoltaic power plants. The SolarTie solution is one of the most robust power
inverter systems on the market, with a base rating of 1.4 megawatts and a turn-on voltage of up to 1,000volts. The SolarTie solution provides dynamic reactive compensation, enabling instantaneous detection,accurate responses and immediate results; these effects insure efficient energy production and precise gridmanagement. As part of the solution, AMSC will also provide grid-management support through its Network
Planning and Applications Group.
Dan McGahn, AMSC President and Chief Operating Officer, commented, "Over the course of thepast decade, AMSC has established itself as a leader in the renewable energy market with a wide range ofsolutions. In fact, our power technologies are now enabling nearly 10 % of the world's wind generated
electricity. We are proud to utilize this tremendous experience base to field a highly optimized, high power
grid interconnection solution for PV solar power plant developers. AMSC's SolarTie solution sets a new
standard for the industry by simplifying implementation, reducing project cost and enhancing plantreliability.” Industry analysts expect the market for SolarTie solutions to be approximately US $2 billion by2015.
Source:“AMSC Launches Its SolarTie™ Grid Interconnection Solution for Photovoltaic Power Plants”American Superconductor Corporation press release (October 12, 2010)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=86422&p=irol-newsArticle_Print&ID=1481362&highlight
Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies Inc. (October 19, 2010)
Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies, Inc. (BEST) has entered into a one-year sponsoredresearch agreement with the Center for Advanced Power Systems at Florida State University(FSCU-CAPS). The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The collaboration will focus on thecontinued development of BEST’s shielded iron core inductive superconducting fault current limiter (iSFCL).
Specifically, the alternating current (AC) loss characteristics of BEST’s HTS tapes will be investigated, AClosses in iSFCL-relevant geometries and components will be modeled and minimized, and the low-iron
iSFCL concept (which differs significantly from that of traditional saturated iron core SFCLs) will be studied.
Dr. Klaus Schlenga, Chief Technology Officer of BEST, commented, "FSU-CAPS is very experienced in theintegration of novel high power equipment, such as advanced superconducting devices, power electronics,
and novel rotating machines into power systems. FSU-CAPS has established a unique test andExtra December, 2010

© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-2-Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

demonstration facility with one of the largest real-time digital power systems simulators integrated withhigh-powered 5-megawatt class AC and DC test beds for hardware in the loop simulation. Thecollaboration between FSU-CAPS and BEST is expected to result in advances in iSFCL technology withminimized AC losses and a utility-friendly implementation of a new generation of power conditioningsystems."
Source:“Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies Enters Into iSFCL Collaboration Agreement with the Center for
Advanced Power Systems at Florida State University”
Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies Inc. press release (October 19, 2010)
http://www.bruker-est.com/pr101019.html

MagnetBruker Daltonics (October 29, 2010)
Bruker Daltonics has announced that it has been selected by the National High Magnetic Field
Laboratory (NHMFL) at Florida State University to design and build the world’s first 21.0 Tesla Fourier
Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR) magnet. Bruker will design the magnet in collaboration withNHMFL scientists. The contract for the magnet, which is being funded by the National Science Foundation,
is valued at over $10 million; delivery of the magnet is scheduled for the first half of 2013. FT-ICR
technology enables the highest resolution mass spectrometers available and is used for the analysis ofextremely complex mixtures including petroleum, metabolites, and large biological molecules such asproteins. At present, the highest field FT-ICR system available operates at 15 T. Consequently, the new 21.0
T system represents a dramatic improvement of 40% in mass resolution and more than 90% in massaccuracy. The magnet for the system will have a 110-mm room-temperature horizontal bore and will becooled using Bruker’s UltraStabilized™ cooling technology and shielded using Bruker’s UltraShield™
technology. The superconducting wire required for the construction of the magnet has already beenordered from Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies, Inc.
Source:“National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University Selects Bruker to Build World’s First
21.0 Tesla FT-ICR Magnet”
Bruker Daltonics press release (October 29, 2010)
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=121496&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1489094&highlight

Medical
Bruker Corporation (October 21, 2010)
Bruker has successfully installed its BioSpec® 170/25 system at the CEA NeuroSpin research centerin France. The system represents the world’s first horizontal ultra-high magnetic field 17.2 Tesla MRI system,with a magnet bore diameter of 25 cm. The MRI scanner will be used for cutting-edge preclinical in vivoimaging of small animals, enabling molecular imaging at a microscopic scale or functional and connectivity
neuroimaging at a higher spatial resolution. Such research can then be translated into clinical applications
with important benefits for human healthcare. The MRI magnet itself is based on Bruker’s UltraStabilized™
Extra December, 2010

© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-3-Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

sub-cooling technology, enabling ultra-high fields for MRI applications with excellent homogeneity andstability. Professor Denis Le Bihan, Director of NeuroSpin, commented, “This unique instrument will give us,
for the first time, access to the working of the whole brain at the cellular level, an important step tounderstand the neural code.”
Source:“Bruker Announces Successful Installation of Record-Setting Ultra-High Field 17 Tesla Preclinical MRI
System at the NeuroSpin Research Center in France”
Bruker press release (October 21, 2010)
http://www.bruker-biospin.com/pr101021.html
National Institute of Standards and Technology (October 14, 2010)
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the German National
Metrology Institute have used NIST’s miniature atom-based magnetic sensors to monitor a humanheartbeat, confirming the device’s potential for biomedical applications. The study is the first to use thesemini-sensors under conditions resembling a clinical setting. The actual experiments were performed at the
Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany; this building is said to have the world’s best
magnetic shielding, which is critical for the high-precision measurements. The mini-sensor, consisting of atiny container containing about 100 billion rubidium atoms in a gaseous form, a low-power infrared laser,and optics, was placed about 5 mm above the left chest of a person lying face up on a bed. The sensor
successfully detected the weak but regular magnetic pattern of the heartbeat. The same signals wererecorded using the “gold standard” for magnetic measurements—a superconducting quantum interference
device (SQUID). A comparison of the signals confirmed that the NIST mini-sensor was able to correctlymeasure the heartbeat and identify many typical signal features. While the mini-sensor generated moresignal interference, it offers the advantage of operating at room temperature (unlike SQUIDs, which must becooled and require complicated and expensive supporting apparatus). These new results suggest that theNIST mini-sensors could be used to make magnetocardiograms as a supplement or alternative toelectrocardiograms. The work has been described in Applied Physics Letters.
Source:“NIST mini-sensor traces faint magnetic signature of human heartbeat”
National Institute of Standards and Technology press release (October 14, 2010)
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/magnetic_101310.cfm

Electronics
National Institute of Standards and Technology (October 27, 2010)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has begun shipping a new 10-volt
standard to users worldwide. The programmable system measure both direct current (DC) and alternating
current (AC) voltages. The system measures voltages using superconducting integrated circuits based on
quantum phenomena and simple equations. The superconducting integrated circuits contain about 300,000
Josephson junctions, with every junction producing exactly the same voltage. Measurements are madebased on the Josephson effect: when microwave radiation of a known frequency is applied to the circuit, theJosephson junctions generate a voltage that can be calculated based on the frequency of the radiation andtwo fundamental constants of nature. The new 10-volt standard offers unique advantages over previous
Extra December, 2010

© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-4-Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

generations of standards, including a higher immunity to interference, output stability, and a simple setup
and operation for DC metrology and the production of AC waveforms for the accurate calibration of AC
signals with frequencies up to a few hundred hertz. The first system was shipped to the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida; additional orders have been received from standards laboratories in Brazil and Taiwan.
Source:“NIST ships first programmable AC/DC 10-volt standard”
National Institute of Standards and Technology press release (October 27, 2010)http://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum/20101026_volt.cfm

Quantum Computer
University of California at Santa Barbara (October 4, 2010)
Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) have taken an important step inthe construction of a quantum computer. Until now, solid state entanglement research has only been
performed using two qubits; the researchers at UCSB, however, were able to conduct experiments using
three qubits. The group is studying superconducting quantum circuits and their potential uses in quantumcomputing. In their most recent work, which was published in Nature, the group fabricated and operated adevice with three coupled phase qubits, using them to produce entangled quantum states. Matthew Neeley,a graduate student at UCSB, explained, “Entanglement is one of the strangest and most counterintuitive
features of quantum mechanics. It is a property of certain kinds of quantum states in which different parts ofthe system are strongly correlated with each other. This is often discussed in the context of bipartite systems
with just two components. However, when one considers tripartite or larger quantum systems, the physicsof entanglement becomes even richer and more interesting… Entanglement is a resource that gives
quantum computers an advantage over classical computers, and so producing multipartite entanglement is
an important step for any system with which we might hope to construct a quantum computer." A researchgroup at Yale University has also published similar results. Together, these two groups have provided thefirst work showing three coupled superconducting qubits.
Source:“Quantum computing research edges toward practicality in UCSB physics laboratory”
University of California at Santa Barbara press release (October 4, 2010)
http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2336

Accelerator
Brookhaven National Laboratory (October 15, 2010)
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory will soon be receiving a new beam source. The
new facility, known as the Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS), will produce and accelerate beams withgreater versatility than the currently used system, allowing research using new kinds of previously
unavailable ions. The EBIS will work by trapping atoms or ions within an electrically charged chamber inside
a 1.5-meter-long cylindrical superconducting magnet. The voltage holds the charged ions in the chamberwhile an electron beam generated at one end passes through, systematically stripping electrons off theExtra December, 2010

© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-5-Extra December, 2010

Date of Issue: December 1, 2010

Superconductivity Web21
Superconductivity

Published by International Superconductivity Technology Center
1-10-13 Shinonome Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0062, Japan Tel:+81-3-3536-7283, Fax:+81-3-3536-7318

trapped atoms. Once the desired number of electrons has been removed, the voltage is turned off and thebeam is released from the trap. The ion beams then move through two small linear accelerators to boost
the beam energy to the level required for injection into the next accelerator. The EBIS is expected to begin
providing helium ions to NASA researchers this fall, with the first uranium collisions expected to occur at
RHIC in late winter or spring 2011.
Source:“New beam source for Brookhaven accelerators”
Brookhaven National Laboratory press release (October 15, 2010)
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=1184

Basic
University of British Columbia (October 14, 2010)
Research at the University of British Columbia (Canada) has indicated that high-temperature
superconductivity in copper oxides is linked to a phenomenon called ‘incoherent excitations’, providing
insight into the electronic response that occurs in these materials before they become superconducting.
The study is the first to measure the behavior of electrons as independent well-defined particles in asuperconductor and their evolution into ill-defined, many-body entities. Associate Professor Andrea
Damascelli, Canada Research Chair in Electronic Structure of Solids with the Department of Physics andAstronomy, explains, "We've never been able to directly quantify the nature of electron behavior withinthese materials across the entire phase diagram—the transition from non-superconducting tosuperconducting behavior. A combination of advanced spectroscopic techniques and access to very purecuprate crystals produced at UBC have allowed us to measure what's going on below the surface of ahigh-temperature superconducting material through the entire progression of different phases." The
researchers were able to measure a rapid loss of quasiparticle integrity in the material’s electron behavior
upon entering the cuprates’ underdoped phase, implying that some important concepts of Fermi liquid
models breakdown upon the entrance of the material into this phase and suggesting that other theoreticaldirections must be sought to explain superconductivity. The research was recently published in Nature
Physics.
Source:“‘Incoherent excitations’ govern key phase of superconductor behavior: UBC research”
University of British Columbia press release (October 14, 2010)
http://www.science.ubc.ca/news/473

Top of Superconductivity Web21

Extra December, 2010© ISTEC 2010 All rights reserved.

-6-