High temperature superconductors for fusion at the Swiss Plasma Center

High temperature superconductors (HTS) may become in future an option for the superconducting magnets of commercial fusion plants. At the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) the R&D activity toward HTS high current, high field cables suitable for fusion magnets started in 2012 and led in 2015 to the assembly of the first 60 kA, 12 T prototype conductor. The cable concept developed at the SPC is based on the principle of 'soldered, twisted stacks' of REBCO tapes. The required number of stacks is assembled in a cored flat cable, cooled by forced flow of supercritical helium. The sample environment of the test facility at SPC has been upgraded with a HTS adapter and a counter-flow heat exchanger to allow testing the HTS sample in a broader range of temperature (4.5 K-50 K) using the existing, NbTi based superconducting transformer and the closed loop refrigerator.