Review of the Research Status of Practical Superconducting Materials and Their Current Carrying Performance

Superconducting materials hold great potential in high field magnetic applications compared to traditional conductive materials. At present, practical superconducting materials include low-temperature superconductors such as NbTi and Nb_3Sn, high-temperature superconductors such as Bi-2212, Bi-2223, YBCO, iron-based superconductors and MgB_2. The development of low-temperature superconducting wires started earlier and has now entered the stage of industrialized production, showing obvious advantages in mechanical properties and cost under low temperature and middle-low magnetic field. However, due to the insufficient intrinsic superconducting performance, low-temperature superconductors are unable to exhibit excellent performance at high temperature or high fields. Further improvement of supercurrent carrying performance mainly depends on the enhancement of pinning ability. High-temperature superconductors have greater advantages in high temperature and high field, but many of them are still in the stage of further performance improvement. Many high-temperature superconductors are limited by the deficiency in their polycrystalline structure, and further optimization of intergranular connectivity is required. In addition, it is also necessary to further enhance their pinning ability. The numerous successful application instances of high-temperature superconducting wires and tapes also prove their tremendous potential in electric power applications.