Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Superconductivity

Rehearsals for prime time

Nature volume 411, pages 532–533 (2001)Cite this article

Superconductivity seems to have been forever waiting in the wings. Although superconducting power cables are about to go live, will the newest material, magnesium diboride, become the class act of the future?

Practical superconductors made their debut in the early 1960s. This followed the discovery of intermetallic compounds that promised high-performance electromagnets cooled by liquid helium to temperatures of about 4 K. But it took 20 years for one of the players, niobium-titanium (NbTi), to become the material of choice for superconducting wires in real applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging and high-energy physics. In 1986, a new family of high-temperature superconductors burst on the scene, based on complex copper-oxide materials. This time the potential lay in electric power applications using refrigeration technologies spanning 20 to 100 K. Despite the brittleness of the copper oxides, a viable, albeit expensive, wire technology was in place by 1992 and 'street performances' in the form of power cables are currently in production.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

References

  1. Nagamatsu, J. et al. Nature 410, 63–64 (2001).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Eom, C. B. et al. Nature 411, 558–560 (2001).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Bugoslavsky, Y. et al. Nature 411, 561–563 (2001).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jin, S., Mavoori, H., Bower, C. & van Dover, R. B. et al. Nature 411, 563–565 (2001).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Berlingcourt, T. G. IEEE Trans. Mag. 23, 403–412 (1987).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Larbalestier, D. C. et al. Nature 410, 186–189 (2001).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Krusin-Elbaum, L. et al. Nature 389, 243–244 (1997).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Grant, P. M. Nature 407, 139–141 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Tomlin, S. Nature 410, 407 (2001).

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. the Electric Power Research Institute, 3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, 94303, California, USA

    Paul Grant

Authors
  1. Paul Grant
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Grant.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Grant, P. Rehearsals for prime time. Nature 411, 532–533 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35079212

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35079212

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing