Fujikura Ltd. (President: Masahiko Ito) announces the receipt of the Dr. James Wong Award* from IEEE, one of the world’s largest academic research organization and technological standardization institute, by Dr. Yasuhiro Iijima, a Fellow in the Superconductor Research Department in the Electronic Technologies R&D Center at Fujikura Ltd.

This is an award of great distinction that recognize outstanding achievements and technological and academic contributions in the superconductor materials field over many years (normally 20 years or longer). Iijima, who is a Fellow at Fujikura, has long time worked on development of rare-earth-based high-temperature superconducting wire, and invented the ion beam assisted deposition method (IBAD method), an indispensable mechanism for controlling the orientation of superconducting crystals, which presented the biggest challenge in practical application of the wire. He made a remarkable contribution to realize high-performance long wire that effectively incorporates this method and another key technology of artificial pinning. The IBAD method has become widespread and is currently used by many institutions as an essential process in manufacturing rare-earth-based high-temperature superconducting wire. The wire manufactured using this method at these institutions is already being used in nuclear magnetic resonance equipment with ultra-strong magnetic fields and other devices, equipment, and products using advanced technology.

Fujikura will continue to contribute to widespread promotion of scientific technology through initiatives in the development of rare-earth-based high-temperature superconductor technology, and will also contribute to the realization of carbon-free communities by creating products that use such technology and promoting widespread use.

*Also see the following link for further details on the Dr. James Wong Award
https://ieeecsc.org/awards/ieee-dr-james-wong-award-continuing-and-significant-contributions-applied-superconductor

IEEE: Stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Headquartered in the U.S., IEEE is an academic research organization and institution for technological standardization in the electrical and information engineering field. It is one of the largest academic research organization in the world dedicated to educational and technological advancements in electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, information engineering, and related fields.

High-temperature superconducting wire: Superconductivity is the phenomenon of zero electrical resistance at a certain temperature or below. There are two types of superconductors: Low-temperature metal superconductors that use liquid helium (boiling point of -269℃) and high-temperature superconductors (oxide superconductors) that do not use liquid helium and exhibit superconductivity even at high temperatures. High-temperature superconducting wire makes it possible to reduce the cost of cooling (and save energy), compared to low-temperature superconducting wire.

Rare-earth-based high-temperature superconducting wire: Superconducting wire created by depositing a coating of oxide superconducting material consisting of rare earth metals (Yttrium, etc.), barium, copper, and other materials with an intermediate layer between the coasting and a chrome and nickel alloy or other metal substrate that is shaped like tape. It possesses the properties of little deterioration in performance even in a magnetic field, high current density, and low AC loss. It is the material with the highest performance among all practical applications of high-temperature superconducting wire.

Ion beam assisted deposition method: Alignment of crystal orientation is important to improve superconducting properties. Aligning crystal orientation in the intermediate layer is important technology that has made it possible to also align crystal orientation in the superconducting layer. Fujikura was the first in the world to develop this proprietary method in 1991.

Artificial pinning technology: This technology dramatically improves the current characteristics in a magnetic field by intentionally introducing impurities called artificial pinning centers (APC) that act as magnetic flux pinning centers in the superconducting layer. Fujikura has succeeded in practical application of this technology to highly practical, high-performance ultra-long wire through the effective combination of this technology.