What are high-temperature superconductors (HTS)?
HTS material was discovered in late 1986 when Müller and Bednorz of IBM’s Zurich Lab announced a superconducting oxide at 30 Kelvin (K). In 1987, Paul Chu of the University of Houston announced the discovery of a compound, Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO), which became superconducting at 90 K. The next months saw a race for even higher temperatures that produced bismuth compounds (BSCCO) superconductive up to 110K and thallium compounds (TBCCO) superconductive up to 127K.
