FOREWORD

 

This Preview offers three technical papers which for different reasons deserve the immediate attention of our readers. These reasons are as follows:

 

Paper ST448 highlights the discovery of a method to dramatically increase the liquid helium yield (efficiency) of small liquefiers, followed by successful development and prompt industrial implementation of a helium gas recovery plant of special interest for small-scale applications, such as sensitive SQUID-based or NMR instrumentation, which cannot be directly cryocooled, because of mechanical vibrations and electromagnetic noise of cryocooling apparatus.

 

Paper ST447 is based on the Final Report on the EU-Japan coordinated project SUPER-IRON (see HE103) and provides a succinct overview of iron-based superconductors (FeSC) and the useful assessment of the potential of these FeSC for large-scale applications of superconductivity such as high-field magnets.  It also includes an overview of the FeSC conductor (CC) development status explaining the reasons why even relatively low-T_c iron-based materials may become of practical interest.

 

Finally, paper ST446 contains information on the standardization effort by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in the area of superconducting large-scale products, presently mostly superconducting wires. This paper, together with paper ST434 of the current Issue No. 32, contains information on activities and documents of importance to everyone working in the field of applied superconductivity. It should be of some interest also to researchers in materials science of superconductors, because of the IEC International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV), which attempts to define and standardize terms used in superconductivity, for example the classification of technically useful superconductors.