Over The Horizon

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ECNZ and Industrial Research Ltd have signed a multi-million dollar deal allowing a US company to commercialise New Zealand's world-leading superconducting technology.

The deal gives researchers five years of funding and provides the New Zealand companies with royalties on future products developed using the technology. They also have a significant shareholding in American Superconducting Corp.

Superconductors are materials which have no resistance to electrical current at low temperatures, and which are therefore extremely efficient. In copper, an electrical current flowing in a ring will take just 50 millionths of second to die away -- in a superconducting material it could last for a million years.

Until recently, superconductors could only operate at extremely low temperatures, below -269^oC. Industrial Research scientists have been amongst the leaders in developing materials which work at higher temperatures -- around -196^oC -- which is a much cheaper and more practical temperature with which to work.

The New Zealanders have already secured a US patent for one of their ceramic superconductors and have others under application. They are currently involved in a legal battle with US, German and Japanese companies for patent rights to a key superconductor based on bismuth.

"[The deal] gives us an immediate avenue for feeding out any new developments we make directly into products," research leader Jeff Tallon says.