Superconductors with low critical temperature for electro-magnets

Among the superconductors with low critical temperature that are used to build magnets, NbTi has reached a development state that allows a massive production for big equipment of physics and an industrial production in the domain of medicine imaging. The material that might challenge the supremacy of NbTi is Nb3Sn but some technical difficulties have yet to be overcome. This report begins with a review of the different industrial processes used to produce superconducting wires based on the NbTi and Nb3Sn materials. The transition from the superconducting state to the resistive normal state is described for both materials, the magnetizing of multi-wire superconducting cables is also presented. The author details the different patterns of wires in cables and proposes a formulary that allows the determination, in some simple cases,of energy losses that are generated in a superconducting cable by a variable magnetic field. (A.C.)