Staff profile

I completed a 4-year master’s degree in natural sciences (MSci MA) from the University of Cambridge in 2016, specialising in physics, with an experimental project on aluminium foams. In 2018, I qualified as a secondary school physics teacher (PGCE) at the University of Durham. I am now working on an experimental PhD under the supervision of Professor Damian Hampshire, Dr Mark Raine and Professor Del Atkinson. I am a member of the Department’s Superconductivity Group and the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy, based in York (http://www.fusion-cdt.ac.uk/). The CDT is a collaboration between 5 major UK universities: The University of York, University of Durham, University of Oxford, University of Liverpool and University of Manchester.

Rare-Earth Barium Copper Oxide (REBCO) High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) offer a number of advantages over more established Low Temperature Superconductors (LTS) such as Nb₃Sn and NbTi. In addition to the higher critical temperature (T_c) of about 90 K, the upper critical field (B_c2) and critical current density (J_c) are much higher, particularly at low temperatures where superconductivity persists in magnetic fields well in excess of 100 T [1]. This high B_c2 makes REBCO valuable for high-field magnet systems. REBCO for current transport is typically manufactured as a Coated Conductor (CC), a quasi-single-crystal layer a few μm thick and up to a few km long, deposited on a sophisticated substrate which controls the grain alignment and provides mechanical support.

In a high-field magnet system, the conductor will be subject to large Lorentz forces, which will induce strains. The superconducting properties of REBCO are sensitive to strain, so improving our understanding of this will inform future magnet design and manufacturing process for CCs.

REBCO has an anisotropic crystal structure and CCs have well-controlled grain alignment, leading to anisotropy in the superconducting properties of a CC. This means that the current that can be carried by a cable depends on the orientation of the magnetic field and the orientation of the strain. My work focuses particularly on biaxial strain measurements of CCs, where we can measure the effect of strain orientation on the superconducting properties, and understanding the strain behaviour from crystallographic texture and microstructure.

Bending beams (springboards) have previously been used to apply both compressive and tensile uniaxial strains to REBCO CCs along the direction of current flow [2]. A newly modified form of the bending beam is used to apply in-situ x-strain with an additional y-strain applied at room temperature. This gives us control over the 2D strain state and allows the strain-surface to be mapped.

The bending beam is attached to a bespoke probe which can be used in our world class, 15 T horizontal magnet system. Using the horizontal magnet system, we can investigate the angular dependence of J_C. Critical currents are measured using a standard 4-terminal technique.

Poster Presentations:

• 15^th European Conference on Applied Superconductivity, 5^th - 10^th September 2021, Virtual;
• 14^th European Conference on Applied Superconductivity, 1^st - 5^th September 2019, Glasgow, UK;
• Culham PhD Showcase, 22^nd – 23^rd July 2019, Oxford, UK;
• Frontiers of Fusion, 29^th April – 3^rd May 2019, York, UK.