Challenges and Opportunities of Superconducting Materials for Future Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Many present and future applications rely on superconducting technology. Indeed, high field magnets used in particle accelerators, high resolution MRIs, energy storage systems such as SMESs, TOKAMAK fusion reactors, as well as energy efficient electronics and high sensitivity photon sensors all use at the moment or will use in the future superconducting materials.

In order to be a good candidate for application, a superconducting material must have high values of critical temperature, of the irreversibility field, as well as of the upper critical field and should also be characterized by a fairy high critical current density, which should be isotropic and robust with respect to a high applied magnetic field. However, the reliability and the scalability of the fabrication process also plays an important role.

To achieve these goals, a wide empirical knowledge and a solid theoretical framework are necessary. Thus, this Special Issue will present the latest results on the improvement of superconductors in their different forms (i.e., thin films, single crystals, and bulks), as well as recent findings which help to understand the physics of superconducting materials in order to improve their performance in view of applications. We encourage the community active in both experimental and theoretical research on superconductors to share this knowledge.

This Special Issue will be focused on all different kinds of superconductors (low temperature, high temperature, iron-based, etc.) which are suitable for applications and will include, but not be limited to, the following topics:

• Electrical transport properties’ improvement;
• Thermal transport and quench;
• Novel materials fabrication and structural characterization;
• Magnetic and superconducting heterostructures;
• Nanostructured superconductors;
• Wires’ and tapes’ technology development;
• Superconducting films for sensors, electronic devices, and spintronics;
• Non-equilibrium vortex dynamics: models and findings;
• Imaging of vortex matter and material defects;
• Material properties for practical superconductors.

Dr. Gaia Grimaldi
Dr. Antonio Leo
Dr. Armando Galluzzi
Guest Editors

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