EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH CERN - ACCELERATORS AND TECHNOLOGY SECTOR APPLICATION OF HIGH Tc SUPERCONDUCTOR IN ACCELERATORS: STATUS AND PROSPECTS

With the continuing improvement of properties of High Tc Superconductors (HTS), their application to accelerator technology is becoming increasingly attractive. While the medium to long-term goal for their use in this field will be for high field magnets, the materials now available enable a number of specific applications which benefit from their characteristics and make them a valid alternative to conventional Low Tc Superconductors (LTS). If devices for electrical utilities generally seek to use nitrogen as cryogen, large superconducting accelerators rely on helium cryogenics, and allow operating at lower temperatures with consequent gains in electrical performance and temperature margin. After an overview of commercial HTS materials, applications of HTS to accelerators are presented, with examples of present and future use of HTS in the Large Hadron Collider.