Towards the Design of Power Switches Utilizing HTS Material

S A March^1,2, A Ballarino¹, C Beduz², K H Meß¹ and Y Yang²

¹CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, 1211 Geneva 23, CH
Email: stephen.alfred.march@cern.ch 
²Institute of Cryogenics, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

Abstract- Conventional superconducting switches for power applications, which operate at liquid helium temperature, generally utilize Nb-Ti superconductor in a cupro-nickel matrix.  For superconducting circuits based on High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) that work at higher temperatures, the associated superconducting switches must also be based on HTS. This paper addresses the issues concerning the requirements and the appropriate design of HTS switches, including approaches to fast triggering.

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Manuscript received November 29, 2007; accepted February 5, 2008. Reference No. ST29, Category 6.   Based on a paper accepted for Proceedings of EUCAS 2007; published in JPCS 98 (2008), paper # 012002