Welly award for HTS researcher

Physicist and IRL group manager, HTS Conductors and Devices, Dr Bob Buckley has won the New Zealand Welly Awards Science & Technology category.

The Wellys have recognised Wellington's top achievers for the past 20 years.

Bob leads the high-temperature superconductor program at IRL. HTS technology is an emerging field that enables the transmission of electricity without resistance or the loss of energy. This, in turn, will enable the manufacture of lighter, smaller and more efficient machines than can be achieved with existing copper wire.

"I would like to emphasise the innovative contribution of my colleagues in this development, which has been critical to achieving the national and international recognition that we have gained.

"We are looking forward to continuing the commercialisation of HTS that I believe will generate significant economic benefit for New Zealand," he says.

He is both an IRL Distinguished Scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Over the past 15 years, Bob has led IRL's research into the synthesis, discovery and application of high-temperature superconductor materials and managed their commercialisation.

Among his many achievements, he is a co-inventor of Bi-2223, the material used to make high-temperature superconductor wires.

The discovery of Bi-2223 was published in the leading scientific journal Nature in 1988, and today the material provides the basis for a major part of the high-temperature superconductor industry worldwide.

Bob has played a key role in developing New Zealand's strategy for capturing the benefits of its high-temperature superconductor discoveries and was a foundation director of IRL's spin-off company HTS-110 and is currently a director of joint venture company General Cable Superconductors.

He is also a board member of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and is author of 97 refereed publications and nine patents.

In 2004 he was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand's Pickering Medal, to recognise excellence and innovation in the practical application of technology; and in 2008, as part of the HTS Roebel cable team, the Royal Society of New Zealand's Cooper Medal.