From May to July 2014, Victor Rouco went to Seconda Università di Napoli and the CNRS-SPIN to study the “Transport properties of superconducting YBCO nanowires grown by CSD”, under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Tafuri.
The Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain has awarded the Retos-Colaboración 2014 project named “DISEÑO DE UNA NUEVA GENERACIÓN DE GENERADORES Y EQUIPOS AUXILIARES PARA ENERGÍA EÓLICA BASADOS EN SUPERCONDUCTORES” leaded by GAMESA INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY, S.L with a total amount of 853.592€ (256.092€ granted and 268.875€ loaned). Universidad de Zaragoza and us (SUMAN IP: Dr. Xavier Granados) participate as a partners and we will receive 176.315€ of grant for 4 years.
Prof. Eric Hellstrom from the Applied Superconductivity Center at National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (USA) was invited to the ICMAB and he lectured about “Development of Bi-2212 wires for High-Field Magnet applications”.
Short abstract: Bi-2212 (Bi2Sr2CaCu2Ox) is the only cuprate-based high-temperature superconductor (HTS) that can be made as a round wire. These round wires can be made with a multifilament architecture, can be twisted, and can be easily cabled (Rutherford and 6-on-1 cables), which are important attributes for building high-field magnets (> 30 T).
Even though the first round-wire Bi-2212 were made in 1989, until recently, Bi-2212 wires did not have high enough Jc for practical applications. The problem was bubbles that form in the wire during processing that block current. In this talk I will describe the development of overpressure (OP) processing, which is a form of hot isostatic pressing (HIP), that removes the bubbles and yields high Jc. Now that we have identified and can remove the main current limiting mechanism, we are reinvestigating all aspects of the heat treatment of Bi-2212 to understand how each portion of the heat treatment affects the final electromagnetic properties of Bi-2212.
OXOLUTIA spin-off jointly with SUMAN researchers applied for a new national patent entitled “MÉTODO DE FABRICACIÓN DE LÁMINAS DELGADAS DE ÓXIDOS EPITAXIALES MEDIANTE IMPRESIÓN DE CHORRO DE TINTA” to the Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (Madrid).
From 12th May to 11th July 2014, Juan Carlos Gonzalez went to the group of Prof. Renner at Département de Physique de la Matière Condensée, Université de Genève, Genève (Switzerland) as visitor to work on “Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Resistive Switching phenomena in La1-xSrxMnO3-x compounds” under the supervision of Dr. Ivan Maggio-Aprile.
Inventors: A. Calleja; M. Vilardell; V.R. Vlad; F. X. Obradors; T. Puig; S. Ricart; J.J.A. Granados
Title: Método de fabricación de láminas delgadas de óxidos epitaxiales mediante impresión de chorro de tinta
Application number: 300130128– PCT/ES2014/070534
Priority country: Espanya
Priority date: 30/06/2014
Conferral date: 2012
Holding Institution: OXOLUTIA S.L- Consejo Superior Investigaciones Científicas
Between the 25th and 27th June, it was celebrated the last annual meeting of NANOSELECT (CONSOLIDER project) at Hotel Eden Roc at Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Girona) and SUMAN students participated very actively.
We got oral presentations from Dr. Cornelia Pop, Ferran Vallès, Laia Soler, Pablo Cayado, Rafael Ortega, Albert Queraltó and poster presentations from Bohores Villarejo, Júlia Jareño and Zack Khayat. In addition, Alba Garzón and Konstantina Konstantopoulou presented oral contributions of the collaboration work with our group.
From OXOLUTIA spin-off, Dr. Marta Vilardell presented an oral contribution and Dr. Roxana Vlad and Sara de Arriba presented poster contributions.
The tittles of each contribution can be checked in the program of the meeting.
The CSIC has awarded the Proyectos Intramurales Especiales project named “Tuning complex oxide perovskites based on emerging new concepts of volume resistive switching phenomena for non-volatile memories” to the group (SUMAN IP: Prof. Teresa Puig) with 70 k€ for 2 years (2014-2016).