Flux pumping power storage devices, electric power transmission, electric motors (e.g. for vehicle propulsion, as in vactrains or maglev trains), magnetic levitation devices, and fault current limiters. 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.
Magnetic flux quantum Magnetic flux quantum The magnetic flux, represented by the symbol , threading some contour or loop is defined as the magnetic field multiplied by the loop area , i.e. . Both and can be arbitrary and so is . However, if one deals with the superconducting loop or a hole in a bulk superconductor, it turns out that the magnetic flux threading such a hole/loop is quantized. The (superconducting) magnetic flux quantum is a combination of fundamental physical constants: the Planck constant and the electron charge . Its value is, therefore, the same for any superconductor. The phenomenon of flux