Staff profile

After attaining a first class honours in an integrated master's degree in Physics with a Year Abroad from Imperial College London in 2025, I am now undertaking an experimental PhD studying high-field superconductors under strain for fusion energy as part of the Durham University Superconductivity Group under the supervision of Professor Damian Hampshire. This PhD also forms part of the EPSRC Fusion Centre for Doctoral Training in Fusion Power.

Fusion CDT

The Fusion CDT is a collaboration between six UK universities (Durham, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, and York), supported by a network of over 20 partners from private industry and national and international laboratories, designed to prepare the next generation of fusion scientists for leadership roles in the global pursuit of fusion energy. Towards this purpose, the first six months of my PhD have been dedicated predominately to training courses focussed on fusion related disciplines, such as plasma physics, computational modelling and experimental analytical tools, and materials science.

Research Interests

My research focuses on measuring the strain dependence of the critical current of HTS REBCO tape in regimes of high magnetic fields and large compressive strain. REBCO tapes are an enabling technology for commercial fusion due to their ability to produce and withstand high magnetic fields in compact geometries [1]. However, high-field fusion magnets constructed from REBCO tape will be subjected to large strains during operation due to Lorentz forces, differential thermal contraction, and gravitational forces [2]. For example, the effective strain in the ITER TF coils will vary between -0.6% and -0.9% [3], and the strains experienced by HTS coils in higher-field, more compact reactors will likely be even greater. Although it is well known that the critical current (J_c) is a function of strain, there are limited data for REBCO tapes under extreme compressive strains in high magnetic fields [4]. Understanding the behaviour of J_c in REBCO tapes in these conditions is crucial for designing effective fusion magnets with safe operating margins.

My current work is centred around using magnetic hysteresis measurements to measure J_c in ~100 μm x 100 μm ReBCO tape samples at temperatures ranging from 4 K to the critical temperature, T_c, magnetic fields up to 7 T, and bending strains ranging from -2% to +0.5%. The samples are prepared via chemical etching of SuperPower AP ReBCO tape and the bending strain is applied using custom sample holders. The small sample size reduces anisotropy effects arising from the field angle orientation to the tape, but is sufficiently large to provide a good signal to noise ratio and allow extrapolation of results to full-scale tape [5]. This measurement will enable the extension of the characterisation of the scaling laws for J_c and the identification of potential safety margins for high-field magnet design.

Future work planned includes:

• Transport measurements of 200 µm etched tracks of REBCO tape under extreme strain (~2–3 %). This will make use of a cold finger cryocooler, capable of holding the sample at a stable temperature for temperatures as low as ~10 K. The use of etched tracks allows criticality to be reached with comparatively small currents, where the use of a full-scale tape could induce so much heating in resistive joints/diagnostics so as to be impractical in most research settings.
• Pulsed-field measurements at e.g., Los Alamos of etched tracks (~100 µm) and Focussed Ion Beam (FIB) milled tracks (~5 µm).
• Extension of characterisation laws for the strain dependence of Jc under biaxial strain for larger strains, reflecting more closely the strain that will be experienced by Fusion Energy magnets.

[1] - IAEA, “IAEA World Fusion Outlook 2025.” pp. 88–90, 2025. Available: https://www.iaea.org/publications/15935/iaea-world-fusion-outlook-2025

[2] - W. M. E. Ellis et al., “Mechanical model for a full fusion tokamak enabled by supercomputing,” vol. 65, no. 3, p. 36033, 2025, doi: 10.1088/1741-4326/adb443. Available: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/adb443

[3] D Uglietti1 , K Sedlak1, R Wesche1, P Bruzzone1, L Muzzi2 and A della Corte. “Progressing in cable-in-conduit for fusion magnets: from ITER to low cost, high performance DEMO” Supercond. Sci. Technol. 31 (2018) 055004 (10pp) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6668/aab3bf/pdf

[4] - You-He Zhou, Dongkeun Park, Yukikazu Iwasa, Review of progress and challenges of key mechanical issues in high-field superconducting magnets, National Science Review, Volume 10, Issue 3, March 2023, nwad001, https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwad001

[5] - GILLARD, EMMA,GRACE,ELIZABETH (2026). The Magnetic Field, Temperature and Strain Dependence of Jc in Narrow Superconducting Tracks of (RE)BCO Coated Conductor, Durham e-Theses. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/16433/