On: How close are we to the holy grail of room-temperature superconductors?

[analog31]

Yes. Practical magnets. But still, I'll check out your link at intermission. ;-)

[nullc → analog31]

I wonder how much RTS research could be expected to produce better materials for making electromagnets.

Even Niobium-tin only gets there via clever manufacturing techniques (e.g. the internal-tin process; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niobium%E2%80%93tin#Niobium_ti... ).

Is ductile HTS a major research target too, or even believed to be possible? Or is the hope that by studying RTS' we'll stumble into something that can be manufactured by chance or gain some deeper understanding of their behavior that let us design more useful materials? It seems the media spills the most ink on room temp but I agree than LN2 temp but able to be formed would be more important-- I think if YBCO worked at -70C it still would not see that much commercial use.