Our HTS magnet technology
TE Magnetics is a world leader in HTS magnets. With exceptional facilities and expertise and over ten years’ experience, we’ve invested over $50 million to create HTS magnet technology that is ultra-high field, robust, quench-safe, tunable, scalable and cost-effective for fusion and exciting new applications.
Designed and built to be:
Robust
Engineered for durability, our ‘pancake’ coil design ensures continuous mechanical support for the current-carrying REBCO layers, with patented ETI plate coil terminations for robust and reliable connections between each pancake. Ultra-low loss current sharing offers unparalleled tolerance to tape variability.
Quench-safe
Our magnet designs are proven to be quench-safe. Utilising sophisticated modelling tools, we manage coil energy and transient events within magnet structures, cross-referenced with commercial toolsets and validated by real-world tests. In the highly unlikely event of a quench, it is benign, leaving the magnet unaffected.
Tunable
Our magnets accommodate a range of time constants to suit real-world applications. We offer non-insulated, fully insulated, and partially insulated magnets, with the insulation profile tailored as part of the magnet design, all with optimal energy management and high thermal conductivity characteristics.
Cost-effective
With expertise in tape characterisation and magnet system placement, we optimise field angles to ensure efficient tape usage and minimise material costs. Operating without liquid helium and its associated infrastructure, our HTS technology is simple to cool and can significantly reduce operating expenses compared to LTS systems.
Scalable
From small prototypes to large commercial and industrial applications, our modular stacked pancake designs offer a cost-effective solution with streamlined manufacturing, assembly, testing and maintenance.
Our technology platforms:
Fixed Field
Ultra-resilient and compact
- The most compact and cost-effective solution for ultra high field generation
- Ultra-resilient operation using “no-insulation” (NI) all-HTS solder-consolidated windings
- A paradigm shift in magnet robustness, proven to function even in the presence of external damage
- Maintains field without quench even under a temporary loss of cooling or power
Suitable for applications including fusion energy (e.g. TF coils), MHD propulsion, UHF quality control magnets, magnetic separation and industrial processing.
Sweeping Field
Scalable, ramp-able and quench protected
- Scalable magnets, in both size and magnetic energy, enabled by patented Partial Insulation (PI) technology
- Tunable ramp-time that can be tailored to the application, from seconds to hours
- Proven quench protection achieving benign rundown of coil with low voltages
Suitable for applications including fusion energy (e.g. CS coils), energy storage systems, motors and generators.
Fast Ramping
Fully-insulated magnets for rapidly changing magnetic fields
- Enabling applications with rapid or continual changes in magnetic field (e.g. AC applications) via full insulation technology
- Resilient to temperature change via efficient thermal design, underpinned by world-class modelling capability
- Real-time magnet health monitoring technology via integrated sensors for magnet control
Suitable for applications including fusion energy, magnetic levitation, manufacturing, motors and generators.
REBCO – the game changing superconductor
Rare-Earth Barium Copper Oxide (REBCO) HTS is the game changing material enabling compact, robust, high field magnets.
REBCO is made using a small amount of rare earth materials in a thin film deposition processes, including either an advanced MOCVD (metal-organic chemical vapour deposition) process or PLD (pulsed laser deposition) process.
Our HTS magnets are wound in parallel from HTS tapes, which are multi-layered conductors typically 12mm wide and less than 0.1 mm thick made mostly of strong and conductive metals with a thin internal coating of REBCO superconducting material.
When cooled to 20 Kelvin, the tape can carry currents of thousands of amps per mm2 without loss.
Patented technology
Our technology is protected by over 200 granted patents including:
- Magnet structure and manufacture
- Tape testing, characterisation and joining
- Magnet operation
- Quench management
- Quench detection
- Partial insulation and current sharing
