The road to conductors of high temperature superconductors: 10 years do make a difference!

Amongst all the predictions for a superconducting future that were made in the early days after the discovery of high temperature superconductivity, most depended on the development of conductors from which magnets, motors, power cables etc. could be constructed. Until 1989, there seemed little prospect of such a technology because polycrystalline forms of HTS were granular and transmitted current very poorly. Starting with an empirical breakthrough in 1959, a strong set of large scale demonstration devices have been made with high temperature superconductors. The foundation of all this technology lies in the conductor. For HTS conductors, 10 years does indeed make a difference, as this review summarizes.