According to the research team, many of the common superconducting materials available today are rigid, brittle and dense, which makes them heavy.
To solve this, the team created high temperature superconducting nanowires that can be woven with plastic fibres into an ultra-thin film.
“That makes the material very pliable and adaptable – like cling film. Theoretically, the material can be made to any size. And we need fewer resources than are typically required to make superconducting ceramics, so our superconducting mesh is also cheaper to fabricate,” says Professor Uwe Hartmann.
“With a density of only 0.05g/cm3, the material is very light, weighing about a hundred times less than a conventional superconductor. This makes the material very promising for all those applications where weight is an issue, such as in space technology. There are also potential applications in medical technology.”
The researchers claim the material could be used as a coating to provide low temperature screening from electromagnetic fields, or used in flexible cables or to facilitate friction-free motion.
To be able to weave this material, the experimental physicists made use of a technique known as electrospinning, which is usually used in the manufacture of polymeric fibres.
“The superconducting material itself is typically an yttrium-barium-copper-oxide or similar compound,” explains research scientist Dr Michael Koblischka.