Flux pumping Flux pumping Flux pumping is a method for magnetising superconductors to fields in excess of 15 teslas. The method can be applied to any type II superconductor and exploits a fundamental property of superconductors. That is their ability to support and maintain currents on the length scale of the superconductor. Conventional magnetic materials are magnetised on a molecular scale which means that superconductors can maintain a flux density orders of magnitude bigger than conventional materials. Flux pumping is especially significant when one bears in mind that all other methods of magnetising superconductors require application of a magnetic flux density at
Magnetic field the area times the magnetic field normal to that area. (This definition of magnetic flux is why is often referred to as "magnetic flux density".) The negative sign represents the fact that any current generated by a changing magnetic field in a coil produces a magnetic field that "opposes" the "change" in the magnetic field that induced it. This phenomenon is known as Lenz's law. This integral formulation of Faraday's law can be converted into a differential form, which applies under slightly different conditions. This form is covered as one of Maxwell's equations below. Similar to the way that a