Superconducting Magnets for Accelerators

Superconducting magnets have been used in all the world's largest accelerators because they allow higher fields to be produced with lower power consumption than conventional magnets. Iron is no longer needed to produce the field, although it is often used to reduce the fringe field. In the absence of iron, a new family of winding shapes has had to developed for generating the field profiles needed in accelerators. At the low temperatures needed to operate superconducting magnets, there are unfortunately many mechanisms which can degrade the performance of a magnet below that which it should be capable of. Strategies for avoiding this degradation are an important part of superconducting magnet technology.