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
Current density is the charge density (SI unit: coulombs per cubic metre), in which "n"(r, "t") is the number of particles per unit volume ("number density") (SI unit: m), "q" is the charge of the individual particles with density "n" (SI unit: coulombs). A common approximation to the current density assumes the current simply is proportional to the electric field, as expressed by: where E is the electric field and "σ" is the electrical conductivity. Conductivity "σ" is the reciprocal (inverse) of electrical resistivity and has the SI units of siemens per metre (S⋅m), and E has the SI units of newtons