ICMC will offer Short Courses at CEC/ICMC 2021 as outlined below. Signing up for the ICMC Short Courses can be done while registering to attend CEC/ICMC’21.  The short courses will be held in Zoom and each registered attendee will be sent the link and course information 3 days prior to the course.

The purpose of the short course series is to offer several brief lecture/discussion periods on topics thought to be of interest to students and young professionals working in the areas of cryogenic materials and devices. The instructors have special interests and knowledge/experience in the topic discussions they will lead.

Short Course 1: High-field Superconducting Materials & Conductors
Instructors:
P.J. Lee; T. Shen
Date: Sunday, July 11, 2021
ICMC Short Course: 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time
Short Course Fee: $25 Students; $50/non-students


Instructor: Peter J. Lee, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University

Title: “Introduction to Low-Temperature Superconductors for Magnet Applications”

Description: Low-temperature superconductors still dominate the commercial application of superconductors despite continued advances in the properties of HTS superconductors. Although they are typically defined as those requiring liquid He cooling, they can also be used with cryocoolers and their critical temperatures can be as high as the ~40 K of MgB2. In 1954 the first successful superconducting solenoid used Nb wire and Nb is still used for most superconducting RF cavities and Nb-based Josephson junctions are widely used in superconducting electronics. This short course will focus on the primary superconductors (Nb-Ti, A15s and MgB2) of interest for magnet applications such as MRI, NMR, fusion, and particle accelerators. We will look at their advantages and disadvantages and how conductors have been developed to optimize their properties. We also discuss recent developments and how they may impact future applications.


Instructor: Tengming Shen, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Title: “High Temperature Superconducting Materials and Conductors”

Description: After three decades of arduous development, three high-Tc cuprate materials have been developed into long-length composite conductors with high critical current density at magnetic fields or temperatures beyond the reach of low-Tc Nb-Ti and Nb3Sn materials. Applications are emerging, including magnets for >1 GHz NMR spectroscopy, high-field fusions, and the next generation of high energy particle colliders. In this course we will learn the design, fabrication, electromagnetic properties, and practical engineering properties of state-of-the-art high-temperature superconducting tape, wire, and cable conductors. We will also discuss technical issues of developing HTS magnet technologies critically associated with conductor designs and properties, including magnetization and shielding current effects, quench detection and protection, and management of stress and strains.


Short Course 2: Quantum Information Science
Instructors:
Z. Minev, M. Holister
Date: Saturday, July 17, 2021
ICMC Short Course: 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Short Course Fee: $25/students; $50/non-students


Instructor: Zlatko Minev, IBM, Co-Founder Qiskit Metal

Organizer: Eric Holland, Keysight Technologies

Title: “Superconducting Qubit Device Design”

Description: In this course, students will receive background information on quantization methods used to design superconducting qubits such as transmons. In the second part of the course, students will use Qiskit Metal to put theory into practice with a standard device design.


Instructor: Matthew Hollister, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Title: “Dilution Refrigerators for Quantum Science”

Description: Many devices and systems used for quantum science require ultra-low temperature refrigeration to exploit quantum phenomena while not being overloaded with thermal noise. Such devices include, but are certainly no limited to, superconducting and semiconducting qubits, and transduction for quantum networking. One of the key workhorses of the field is the dilution refrigerator, which is the only refrigeration machine capable of producing and sustaining temperatures in the millikelvin range. Although dilution refrigerators are a technology that has existed since the 1960s, the last decade has seen an explosion of innovation in the field, driven by the demands of quantum technologies. In this short course, we will review the history and evolution of the dilution refrigerator, the physics underpinning the cooling process, discuss practical designs of refrigerators, and examine the current state of the art and where development may be going in the next decade.


Short Course 3: Properties of Structural Materials and Introduction to Additive Manufacturing for Cryogenic Applications
Instructors: R.P. Walsh, I. Aviles Santillana, T.J. Horn
Date: Sunday, July 18, 2021
ICMC Short Course: 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Short Course Fee: $25/students; $50/non-students


Instructors: Robert P. Walsh, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University and Ignacio Aviles Santillana, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

Title: “Structural Materials – Metals and Alloys for Cryogenic Applications”

Description: Industrial machinery operating at cryogenic temperatures place challenging demands on material performance. Historically, the main driver for material development at low temperature has been the superconducting magnet community, earlier in time, for high energy physics, and more recently for nuclear fusion magnets. Currently, there is a growing interest for structural materials at cryogenic temperature in the context of using liquid hydrogen as a source of energy.

Since cryogenic equipment is a small share of the industrial market, design and construction is often done using commercially available materials that were not originally intended for cryogenic use, with the evident dangers this might entail. For an adequate, safe and long-lasting equipment design for cryogenic environments, a comprehensive material selection needs to be carried out, relying on available data and historical experience.

This class covers the common structural materials used at cryogenic temperatures, and the effect that temperature has on their properties. Fundamental aspects for material selection and joining techniques will be explained. We will also cover the types of tests and specificities of the test methods used to generate the cryogenic materials property data.


Instructor: Dr. Timothy J. Horn, North Carolina State University

Title: “Introduction to Additive Manufacturing”

Description: Additive Manufacturing (AM) is revolutionizing the design and production of numerous critical products. It has the potential to disrupt the cost capability curve for cryogenic materials by enabling batch-size production, quality control, and certification of vital and complex components in a single operation. The course covers basic AM processes of interest to some technologically essential cryogenic materials from the viewpoint of structure-property and application relationships.