Scientists celebrate 100 years

TOP scientists from various parts of the world gathered at Daresbury Laboratory, near Warrington, yesterday to celebrate 100 years since the discovery of the phenomenon of superconductivity.
The occasion allowed international scientists and engineers to discuss developments in magnet design, radio frequency technology and high temperature superconductors. These technologies have the potential to change how power is delivered to homes as well as develop new types of medical diagnostic devices and treatments.
Discovered in 1911 by Dutchman Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, superconductivity has become the underpinning technology for many of the world’s most important international science experiments, with STFC (Science and Technology Facility Council) instrumental in the developments.
Superconductivity has already found applications in medical scanners, computing and even transport.
Speakers from CERN in Geneva – where the Large Hadron Collider is located – Cornell University in the USA, Oxford University and the John Adams and Cockcroft Institutes joined STFC scientists and engineers to highlight past successes, current challenges and future opportunities for superconducting technology.
STFC’s Shrikant Pattalwar said: “The famous Rutherford cable developed by STFC in the seventies is now a world standard used in superconducting magnets. The same programme led the way to building dipoles – magnets which direct beams of particles – for the Large Hadron Collider.”
Representatives from Oxford Instruments and Research Instruments also talked about how industry has embraced significant scientific and engineering challenges to deliver the components that enable experimental facilities like the ISIS neutron source and Diamond Light Source to operate.