A research team led by Prof. CHEN Wenge from the Hefei lnstitutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with Prof. MA Yanwei's research group from the Institute of Electrical Engineering of CAS, developed the first Tesla-class iron-based superconducting coil for high-field application.

The results were published in Superconductor Science and Technology.

Iron-based superconducting materials are new superconducting materials discovered in the field of superconductors after cuprate superconducting materials. Due to their advantages of high upper critical field and low anisotropy, iron-based superconducting materials have been widely concerned and studied in recent years. The preparation of iron-based superconducting wire/tape and the fabrication of iron-based superconducting coil has been studied all over the world.

In this study, the researchers designed and optimized the iron-based superconducting high-field inductor based on the parameters of three 100-meter-long iron-based superconducting tapes. They explored and perfected the coil development process and established the high-field iron-based superconducting coil test system.

A higher magnetic field using seven large iron-based superconducting double pancake coils (DPCs) was demonstrated with promising results.

The coil successfully generated a central magnetic field strength of 1.03 T in the 20 T background field of the WM3 water-cooled magnet at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, surpassing all previously reported performance tests of IBS coils.

"This is the first practical application of iron-based superconducting materials in a high background magnetic field, which greatly promotes the practical progress of iron-based superconducting materials," said Prof. CHEN.