Experimental Determination of the Recovery Time of the Superconducting Properties of the HTS-2G Tape After Removing an External Perpendicular Magnetic Field

Abstract

Continuous improvement of fuel efficiency and reducing harmful emissions is a trend driven by economic and environmental considerations. It's primarily relevant for transport. Implementation of integrated electric propulsion (IEP), or full electric propulsion (FEP) systems is one of the ways to accomplish this. The power plant works in the rated mode as part of the electric propulsion system. Also, these systems usually include power static converters – rectifiers and inverters. The traditional power switches, based on semiconductor elements, for example, an insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), have significant heat generation and cannot be placed in the cryogenic zone of fully superconducting systems. Placing of the power static converters (rectifiers and inverters) in a warm zone increases the coolant consumption due to heat inflows into cryogenic zones with superconducting equipment through current leads. Thus, the task of creating power cryogenic switches based on other physical principles is required. This experimental research is dedicated to the determination of the recovery time of the superconducting properties of the HTS-2G tape after removing an external perpendicular magnetic field. That's necessary to estimate the possibility of its use as a superconducting switch (cryotron) for large-scale applications. Moreover, this experimental research methodology is applicable for the estimation of the current-carrying capacity and measures the operation stability in the case of large-scale superconducting devices where HTS-2G tape is in an external alternating magnetic field.