Superconductivity showed up about a century ago, when the Dutch physicist, Kamerlingh Onnes, succeeded in liquefying helium, reaching therefore extremely low temperatures for the first time. Even if it is already such a well-known mechanism, superconductivity still represents one of the most challenging and astonishing phenomena in nature.

The possibility to flow a lossless electrical current in a superconducting material forever, with no waste of energy at all, is a dream made reality in the present world where better production, storage, and use of energy is a must in order to protect our environments, together with keeping the quality of life at highest.

So, why is the world not entirely superconducting yet? Unfortunately superconductivity occurs at very low temperatures, and the earth surface is too hot to stimulate superconductivity in ambient conditions, although the coldest polar areas rarely come close to the operating temperatures of some of the newest superconducting materials discovered recently.

Cold temperature is the main obstacle against the widespread use of superconductivity then. On the other hand, cryogenic technology has made a huge progress in the recent years, with the introduction of more efficient and reliable commercial refrigerators (or cryo-coolers), that are now capable of cooling bigger and bigger devices to low temperatures.

Engineers in leading companies worldwide are now designing, prototyping, and in many cases already producing on a regular base superconducting motors, generators, power cables, medical devices, just to mention a few successful examples of higher efficiency systems than the non-superconducting ones. In addition, innovative devices as superconducting fault current limiters (SFCL), medical resonance imagers (MRI), and weak magnetic field sensors (SQUID) have or will have an even easier impact on the market just because they have no ‘copper based’ equivalent to compete with.

So the point with everyday superconductivity is not ‘if’ it will becomes reality, but just ‘when’. In a world in which every technology or even a single small component has to be pushed to the limit to improve performances and efficiencies, reduce costs, and new frontiers have to be explored in order to create a better future, we cannot simply stick forever to the use of the old, limiting, inefficient technology of copper for the energy generation, transportation and use.

Superconductivity is a transversal technology to many fields, and it is now clear that massive superconductivity use will be required by the future nuclear fusion power plants (ITER), but also solar energy will profit from superconducting cables to bring power to our cities in more efficient ways. Wind energy is already using more and more superconducting generators in order to increase their efficiency and to improve their reliability to really useful levels. Superconducting computers will be the future generation of unparalleled fast computing, and medical imaging technologies will further improve their capabilities by using more and more powerful superconductors. Superconductors can be used in very efficient magnetic filters that can clean waste, coal, water, exhaust gases. Fault current limiters will contribute to a better energy distribution, preventing blackouts and helping for a better power quality.

Superconductivity can give its contribution everywhere and there are countries that have realized that.

About 200 M$/year are typically spent worldwide on the research and development of advances superconducting materials and devices.

So, are you ready for superconductivity? Our community is waiting for You.