Media Releases
June 2014
Dr Mark Ainslie, who is part of the Bulk Superconductivity Research Group at the University of Cambridge, recently broke a decade-long world record held by a Japanese group for the highest trapped field in a bulk superconductor. The group achieved 17.6 T, beating the previous record of 17.24, using our bulk superconductor materials. This is over 1,000 times the strength of a refrigerator magnet, for example.
Mark has been in Cambridge for five and a half years now, after receiving the R A Fisher Scholarship in Science to fund his PhD. The work he did during his PhD resulted in him being awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship, but he states "without the generous support of CAS to get me here initially, I wouldn't be in this position".
The press release from the Department can be found here: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-engineers-break-superconductor-world-record, and the paper was published a few days ago as a Fast Track Communication in the journal Superconductor Science and Technology: http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-2048/27/8/082001
Coinciding with this result, his college - King's College, Cambridge, where he is a Junior Research Fellow - has run a piece on his own research programme trying to apply these bulk high-temperature superconducting materials to the next generation of electric machines. http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/research/current-research/superconductors-ainslie.html