The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently released a new study on advances in superconducting wire technology. A team led by ORNL’s Amit Goyal demonstrated that the ability to control nanoscale imperfections in superconducting wires results in materials with excellent and customized performance. The team’s findings are published in Nature Publishing Group’s Scientific Reports. The full press release and link to the new report are available on ORNL’s website.

Dr. Goyal, a high temperature superconductivity (HTS) research at ORNL, won the Department’s 2011 E.O. Lawrence Award in the inaugural category of Energy Science and Innovation. The award honors U.S. scientists and engineers for exceptional contributions in research and development supporting DOE and its mission. Dr. Goyal was cited for his work in “pioneering research and transformative contributions to the field of applied high temperature superconductivity, including fundamental materials science advances and technical innovations enabling large-scale applications of these novel materials.”

Under OE sponsorship, Dr. Goyal co-invented the Rolling Assisted Bi-Axially Textured Substrate technology (RABiTS) that is used as a substrate for second generation HTS wires. OE support also led to the invention of Structural Single Crystal Faceted Fiber Substrate (SSIFFS) and the 3-D Self Assembly of Nanodot Columns. These inventions and associated RD resulted in 7 RD 100 Awards including the 2010 RD Magazine's Innovator of the Year Award, 3 Federal Laboratory Consortium Excellence in Technology Transfer National Awards, a DOE Energy100 Award and many others. As a world authority on HTS materials, Dr. Goyal has presented OE-sponsored results in more than 150 invited talks, co-authored more than 350 papers and is a fellow of 7 professional societies.