Earticle

We transformed the shape of a YBCO sample with striation to reduce hysteresis and ac losses. And we chose several points to analyze in detail and visualized superconducting properties like critical transition temperature, distribution of the magnetic field, distribution of the current density and hysteresis in a non-destructive manner based on Low Temperature Scanning Laser Hall Probe Microscopy (LTSLHPM) to examine the homogeneity of the sample.

We investigate the electrical and thermal transport properties of a sesquicarbide superconductor La2C3, including electrical resistivity, thermoelectric power, and thermal conductivity. The electrical resistivity exhibits a typical metallic character with a saturation behavior at high temperatures. The thermoelectric power shows a metallic behavior with pronounced phonon-drag effect, comparable with pure metals. The broad peak of the thermal conductivity is observed in the superconducting state, which is rapidly suppressed by magnetic fields. These observations suggest that the electron-phonon scattering is significant in La2C3, which is relevant with the relatively high-Tc in La2C3 through strong electron-phonon coupling with low frequency phonon modes.

We have developed a terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) system for transmission and reflection measurements of metallic thin films. Using our THz-TDS system, we studied the conventional superconductor niobium (Nb) in the normal state in the spectral range from 5 to 50 cm-1. Both the real and imaginary parts of the conductivity are acquired without Kramers-Kronig analysis. Nb exhibits a nearly frequency independent real conductivity spectrum in the terahertz range, with a very small imaginary part.

We introduce a generic method to analyze optical 17reflectance spectra of strongly correlated electron systems including high-temperature superconductors by using an extended Drude model and Allen’s approach. We explain the process step by step from reflectance through the optical conductivity and the scattering rate to the bosonic spectral function. Through the process we are able to get important information on the interactions between charge carriers from measured optical conductivity of the strongly correlated electron systems including copper oxide and iron pnitide high temperature superconductors.

In this paper, the Superconductor flywheel energy storage system (SFESS) was used for the load frequency control (LFC) of an interconnected 2 area power system. The robust SFESS controller using quantitative feedback theory (QFT) was designed to improve control performance in spite of parameter uncertainty and unexpected disturbances. An overlapping decomposition method was applied to simplify SFESS controller design for the interconnected 2 area power system. The model for simulation of the interconnected 2 area power system included the reheat steam turbine, governor, boiler dynamics and nonlinearity such as governor deadband and generation rate constraint (GRC). To verify robust performance of proposed SFESS controller, dynamic simulation was performed under various disturbances and parameters variation of power system. The results showed that the proposed SFESS controller was more robust than the conventional method

We report processing technique in the MO image measurement system. Calibration procedure is not only considered to perpendicular field but also in-plane field. Current density and field profiles are obtained by Biot-savart law and inversion method. We show example of (Gd,Y)1Ba2Cu3O7-δ-BaZrO3 film that have tilted nano rod pinning centers about 13° from the c-axis.

AMR (Active Magnetic Regenerative) refrigerators require the large variation of the magnetic field and a HTS magnet can be used. The amount of AC loss is very important considering the overall efficiency of the AMR refrigerator. However, it is very hard to estimate the precise loss of the HTS magnet because the magnetic field distribution around the conductor itself depends on the coil configuration and the neighboring HTS wires interact each other through the distorted magnetic field by the screening current Therefore, the AC loss of HTS magnet should be calculated using the whole configuration of the HTS magnet with superconducting characteristic. This paper describes the AC loss of the HTS magnet by an appropriate FEM approach, which uses the non-linear characteristic of HTS conductor. The analysis model is based on the 2-D FEM model, called as ‘magnetic field formulation and edge-element model’, for whole coil configuration in cylindrical coordinates. The effects of transport current and stacked conductors on the AC loss are investigated considering the field-dependent critical current. The PDE model of ‘Comsol multiphysics’ is used for the FEM analysis with properly implemented equations for axisymmetric model.

The superconducting Homopolar motor is manufactured and tested. Homopolar motor system is simple and solid as the field coil of the motor is fixed near the stator coil without rotating system. In this paper, a 5 kW fully superconducting homopolar motor which has high temperature superconducting armature and field coils is manufactured and tested in liquid nitrogen. The critical current test results of the used 2G superconducting wire, pancake coil for rotor winding and race-track coils for armature winding are reported. Also, the test result of rotating and operating performance is presented. The operating frequency is to be 5 Hz for low-speed rotating. The developed fully superconducting Homopolar motor is the world’s first.

The contactless power transfer (CPT) systems have been recently gaining popularity widely since it is an available option to realize the power delivery and storage with connector-free devices across a large air gap. Especially, the CPT with electromagnetic resonance coupling method is possible to exchange energy within 2 m efficiently. However, the power transfer efficiency of CPT in commercialized products has been limited because the impedance matching of coupled coils is sensitive. As a reasonable approach, we combined the CPT system with HTS wire technology and called as, superconducting contactless power transfer (SUCPT) system. Since the superconducting coils have an enough current density, the superconducting antenna and receiver coils at CPT system have a merit to deliver and receive a mass amount of electric energy. In this paper, we present the feasibility of the SUCPT system and examine the transmission properties of SUCPT phenomenon between room temperature and very low temperature at 77 K as long as the receiver is within 1.0 m distance.

Closed-loop J-T (Joule-Thomson) refrigeration cycle is advantageous compared to common open loop N2 decompression system in terms of nitrogen consumption. In this study, two closed-loop pure N2 J-T refrigeration systems with sub-atmospheric device for cooling High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) power cable are investigated. J-T cooling systems include 2-stage compressor, 2-stage precooling cycle, J-T valve and a cold compressor or an auxiliary vacuum pump at the room temperature. The cold compressor and the vacuum pump are installed after the J-T valve to create sub-atmospheric condition. The temperature of 67 K is possible by lowering the pressure up to 24 kPa at the cold part. The optimized hydrocarbon mixed refrigerant (MR) J-T system is applied for precooling stage. The cold head of precooling MR J-T have the temperature from 120 K to 150 K. The various characteristics of cold compressor are invstigated and applied to design parameter of the cold compressor. The Carnot efficiency of cold compressor system is calculated as 16.7% and that of vacuum pump system as 16.4%. The efficiency difference between the cold compressor system and the vacuum pump system is due to difference of enthalpy change at cryogenic temperature, enthalpy change at room temperature and different work load at the pre-cooling cycle. The efficiency of neon-nitrogen MR J-T system is also presented for comparison with the sub-atmospheric devices. These systems have several pros and cons in comparison to typical MR J-T systems such as vacuum line maintainability, system’s COP and etc. In this paper, the detailed design of the subcooled N2 J-T systems are examined and some practical issues of the sub-atmospheric devices are discussed.

This paper deals with harmonic components of the voltage on high temperature superconducting wire carrying an alternating current. HTS wire is used to manufacture superconducting power applications carrying an alternating current. Typically, international standard, IEC 61788-3 is used for critical current measurement. Thus, it is not ideal that critical current criteria in dc are adapted to superconducting power devices to decide the operating current of the devices. In this paper, we confirmed odd harmonic voltage on HTS wires carrying an AC. The ratio between harmonic components and fundamental component can be significant clues to decide the critical current criteria for HTS wire and its power applications in AC circumstance.