Coherent and Faraday 1867 to scale up production of superconducting tape for fusion reactors
Coherent and Faraday 1867 are to scale up manufacturing of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape to enable mass deployment of nuclear fusion reactors.
The development of fusion reactors over the last decade is driving the demand for HTS tape which is expected to grow ten fold by 2027. The tape technology is at the heart of the extremely strong electromagnets used to confine plasma in magnetic-confinement fusion reactors.
Coherent LEAP excimer lasers are used for pulsed laser deposition that enable the manufacturing of HTS tape while Faraday 1867 is the world’s leading producer of HTS tape through its subsidiary, Faraday Factory Japan. The two signed a letter of intent to increase manufacturing capacity at Faraday’s factory in Japan with excimer lasers from Coherent, to meet the global demand for HTS tape that is expected to grow by a factor of ten by 2027.
“We understand that countries in the nuclear fusion energy race are looking to ramp up sustainable supply chains of HTS tape on the order of thousands of kilometers per year to keep fusion technology development on a fast track,” said Dr. Kai Schmidt, Senior Vice President, Excimer Laser Business Unit at Coherent. “We have been partners with Faraday 1867 for more than ten years, and we are eager to supply the lasers that will support the production ramp-up phase of HTS tape.”
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“Thanks to our collaboration with Coherent, our HTS tape is already designed into some of the most advanced magnetic-confined fusion devices in the world that continue to achieve breakthroughs on the path to clean and abundant fusion energy,” said Dr. Sergey Lee, Representative Director of Faraday Factory Japan.
“Applications for HTS tape go beyond fusion reactors: They include loss-less energy transmission, zero-carbon aviation and container ships, helium-free MRI systems, advanced propulsion for spaceships, and many more. Combined, these applications are driving the double-digit annual percentage growth of the market for HTS tape, which is increasing the urgency to invest in HTS tape manufacturing capacity.”
HTS tape is one of the key technologies that enable magnetic-confinement fusion reactors such as tokamaks, which have much simpler designs, are more compact, and have lower operating costs than previous technologies. HTS tape can operate at temperatures of tens of Kelvins, which eliminates the need for costly cooling systems based on non-sustainable liquid helium technology. Magnetic-confinement reactors are expected to eventually be capable of producing gigawatts of carbon-free power with a net gain of greater than ten.
coherent.com; faradaygroup.com.
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