Superconducting permanent magnets and their application in magnetic levitation

Abstract Superconducting permanent magnets form a completely new class of permanent magnets. Of course, they must be cooled to 77 K or below. At very low temperatures (24 K) their magnetization can be a factor of 10 higher than that of the best conventional magnets, providing magnetic forces and energies which are up to two orders of magnitude higher. These new supermagnets became only recently available by the extreme improvement of the quality of melt-textured massive YBa2Cu3Ox samples. Besides having a high magnetization, these superconducting permanent magnets can freeze in any given magnetic field configuration allowing completely new applications like superconducting transport systems or superconducting magnetic bearings.