Electromagnetic field analyses were carried out to study the influence of coated-conductor magnetisation, i.e. the screening (shielding) current, on the field quality of a dipole magnet in a rotating gantry for hadron cancer therapy. The analyses were made on the cross section of a cosine-theta dipole magnet in a rotating gantry for carbon ions, which generated 2.90 T of magnetic field. The temporal profile (temporal variation) of the magnet current was determined based on the actual excitation schemes of the magnets in the rotating gantry. The experimentally determined superconducting property of a coated conductor was considered, and we calculated the temporal evolutions of the current-density distributions in all the turns of coated conductors in the magnet. From the obtained current-density distributions, we calculated the multipole components of the magnetic field and evaluated the field quality of the magnet. The deviation in the dipole component from its designed value was up to approximately 25 mT, which was approximately 1% of the designed maximum dipole component. Its variation between repeated excitations was approximately 0.03%, and it drifted approximately 0.06% in 10 s. Some compensation schemes might be required to counteract such influence of magnetisation on the dipole component. Meanwhile, the higher multipole components were small, stable, and sufficiently reproducible for a magnet in rotating gantries, i.e. |b3| ∼ 1.1 × 10−3 and |Δb3| ∼ 0.2 × 10−3 in 10 s.

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A project on the development of REBa2Cu3O7−δ (REBCO) magnets for ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was started in 2013. Since REBCO-coated conductors feature high mechanical strength under tensile stress and high critical current density, use of REBCO coils would allow superconducting magnets to be made smaller and lighter than conventional ones. In addition, a conduction-cooled superconducting magnet is simpler to use than one cooled by a liquid helium bath because the operation and maintenance of the cryogenic system become simpler, without the need to handle cryogenic fluid. Superconducting magnets for MRI require homogeneous, stable magnetic fields. The homogeneity of the magnetic field is highly dependent on the coil shape and position. Moreover, in REBCO magnets, the screening-current-induced magnetic field, which changes the magnetic field distribution of the magnet, is one of the critical issues. In order to evaluate the magnetic field homogeneity and the screening-current-induced magnetic field, a 1 T model magnet and some test coils were fabricated. From an evaluation of the 1 T model magnet, it was found that the main reason for magnetic field inhomogeneity was the tolerances in the z-axis positions of the coils, and therefore, it is important to control the gap between the single pancakes. In addition, we have already demonstrated the generation of an 8.27 T central magnetic field at 10 K with a small test coil. The screening-current-induced magnetic field was 0.43 T and was predictable by using an electromagnetic field simulation program. These results were reflected in the design of a conduction-cooled 9.4 T REBCO magnet for whole-body MRI systems. The magnet was composed of six main coils and two active shield coils. The total conductor length was 581 km, and the stored energy was 293 kJ. The field inhomogeneity was 24 ppm peak to peak and 3 ppm volume-root-mean-square (VRMS) for a 500 mm diameter spherical volume (DSV). The axial and radial 5 gauss line locations were less than 5 m and 4.2 m respectively.

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To study the influence of coated-conductor magnetization on the field quality of accelerator magnets, we made a small dipole magnet consisting of four racetrack coils wound with GdBCO coated conductors and measured its magnetic field in liquid nitrogen by using rotating pick-up coils. We focused on the dipole and sextupole components (coefficients) of the magnetic field, which vary with time owing to the decay of the magnetization of the coated conductors. About 50 min (3055 s) after the current was ramped up to 50 A, the dipole coefficient normalized by the design value of the dipole component, i.e., the value calculated with the designed coil shape and the uniform current distribution in the coated conductors, increased by 7.4 × 10 −4 , and the sextupole coefficient normalized by the design value of the dipole component increased by 1.8 × 10 −4 . The magnitudes of the dipole and sextupole components depended on the excitation history of the magnet. Electromagnetic field analyses were carried out to calculate the current distributions in coated conductors, considering their superconducting properties; the dipole and sextupole coefficients were then determined from the calculated current distributions. Although the analyses were based on the two-dimensional approximation of the cross-section of the magnet, the temporal behaviours as well as the hysteretic characteristics of the calculated dipole and sextupole coefficients agree qualitatively with those of the dipole and sextupole coefficients measured in the magnet.