Method of fabricating multifilament intermetallic superconductor

A method is described for the fabrication of a multifilament superconducting wire of the type A/sub 3/B where A is selected from the group consisting of Nb and V, and B is selected from the group consisting of Sn and Ga which comprises the steps of: (a) filling the center of one or more copper tubes with B or with a predominantly B-copper alloy and drawing the tubes to form copper -B wires, the ratio of B to Cu in the wire being between 10-50 weight % B; (b) cabling a plurality of the copper -B wires around a core predominantly A wire; (c) bundling a plurality of the cables of step (b) with an enveloping layer of copper; (d) drawing the assembly of step (c) to reduce its diameter to a desired size; and (e) heat treating the product of step (d) to cause B to diffuse and form A/sub 3/B at the surface of the A filaments