HTS110

HTS110 is a commercial company based at IRL that was formed to carry the research findings of the superconductor research team from IRL to the marketplace. In this video, Dr Nick Strickland, a research scientist at IRL, highlights the successes of this company. He also explains how the American company American Superconductor Corporation have been instrumental to the success of HTS110.

Acknowledgements: American Superconductor HTS-110 Ltd

Transcript

DR NICK STRICKLAND From the early days of our research into high-temperature superconductors, we became involved with a company in America called American Superconductor Corporation, and they are making superconducting wires, so we have a had a longstanding and very strong partnership with them to develop their production of superconducting wires. It’s their product that we are looking to improve, and it’s their product that is going into devices being created by HTS110.

HTS110 is a start-up company here in Lower Hutt that grew out of our research group, so it started off with 2 or 3 scientists from our research group starting to take the idea of taking the superconducting wires that have been developed – are still being improved but were in existence – making them into electromagnets and making devices from those electromagnets. So this company is now making scientific magnets and is selling these all round the world.

The research here at IRL is all focused at creating wealth for New Zealand, and as part of that, it’s part of our job to try and take the technology that we are creating and push it towards the marketplace. And HTS110 has been a fabulously successful company and, in some sense, justifies the years of research that we have put into the high-temperature superconductors here in New Zealand.