Accepted Manuscript

Wireless Power Transfer Using a Superconducting Capacitor

Hui Yu , Guomin Zhang , Guole Liu , Qi Liu , Liwei Jing

PII: S0921-4534(17)30512-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physc.2018.10.013
Reference: PHYSC 1253408

To appear in: Physica C: Superconductivity and its applications

Received date: 17 November 2017

Revised date: 2 October 2018
Accepted date: 28 October 2018

Please cite this article as: Hui Yu , Guomin Zhang , Guole Liu , Qi Liu , Liwei Jing , Wireless Power
Transfer Using a Superconducting Capacitor, Physica C: Superconductivity and its applications (2019),
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physc.2018.10.013

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Wireless Power Transfer Using a Superconducting

Capacitor
Hui Yu, Guomin Zhang, Guole Liu, Qi Liu, and Liwei Jing

Abstract—It has been demonstrated that a high temperature nitrogen and the conventional compensation capacitors outside
superconducting (HTS) wireless power transfer (WPT) system still exist. Because at low frequencies the power transfer
has the advantages of higher power transfer efficiencies and efficiency of a WPT system is dominated by the resistive

T
longer transmission distances. But the resistive losses of the
losses (and at high frequencies by radiation) of the WPT
conventional compensation capacitors, the copper connectors and
system [4]. According to [13], the resistance of the capacitor

IP
the long copper connecting wires between the HTS coils in the
liquid nitrogen and the conventional compensation capacitors causes 7.2% reduction in the efficiency of WPT. To reduce the
outside still exist. Since at low frequencies the power transfer influence of resistance of capacitor on efficiency, [13]

CR
efficiency of a WPT system is dominated by the resistive losses proposed dividing capacitor into two capacitors and got 1.2%
(and at high frequencies by radiation) of the WPT system and the increase. Since the AC loss of superconductors is much lower
AC loss of superconductors is much lower than that of
than that of conventional conductors, using superconducting
conventional conductors, using superconducting capacitors as the
compensation capacitors is an optional way to further increase capacitors as the compensation capacitors is expected to
improve the power transfer efficiency of a WPT system higher.
the power transfer efficiency. Here, a superconducting capacitor
was constructed. Two kinds of HTS WPT experiments were
conducted by use of the superconducting capacitor and the
conventional capacitor as the transmitting compensation
capacitor, respectively. The results are presented and analyzed. It
US In this paper, based on the analysis of the WPT theory, a
HTS WPT system using a superconducting capacitor is
studied. The experimental results of the HTS WPT system
AN
using the superconducting capacitor and the conventional
is shown that though the capacitance of our superconducting
capacitor changed a little, for the distance up to 1.5 times of the capacitor as the transmitting compensation capacitor are
radius of the coils, the efficiency of the WPT system can be presented, compared and analyzed.
increased by 4.25% by using the superconducting capacitor as Other significant factors, such as the frequency that the
the transmitting compensation capacitor. system is tuned for, should also be considered to increase the
M

 efficiency of a WPT system. But this paper focus on how the

Index Terms—High temperature superconductors, capacitors, material of the transmitting capacitor affects the HTS WPT
wireless power transfer, efficiency.
system. So we kept other elements constant, which might lead
to a lower efficiency. For example, for electromagnetic safety
ED

and lower AC loss of HTS, we choose lower frequency which

I. INTRODUCTION
usually result in lower WPT efficiency (such as in [14], the
W IRELESS POWER transfer (WPT) is of increasing interests
today, owing to the applications such as wireless
efficiency is only 24% when the distance is about 1.5 times of
the coil size). In future study, other elements will be taken into
PT

powering sensor networks, biological miniature implants and
vehicles [1-3]. Keys to these applications are high efficiencies
and long distances, which have been achieved by utilizing
near field magnetic coupling between two identical resonators
CE
account to further improve the system.
In this paper: Section II presents the theoretical analysis.
Section III reports the experimental approach. Section IV

discusses the experimental results. A brief conclusion is given

[4], [5]. WPT using high temperature superconducting (HTS) in Section V.
coils has been demonstrated of higher power transfer
efficiencies and longer transmission distances [6-12]. II. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
However, the resistive losses of the conventional
AC

The key role of the superconducting capacitor in this paper

compensation capacitors, the copper connectors and the long
is operating in conjunction with the inductance of the coil to
copper connecting wires between the HTS coils in the liquid
cause it to resonate out at a particular frequency. We therefore
need to know how the circuit parameters such as currents and
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of voltages change with the frequency and the components
China under Grant 51377155. (Corresponding author: Guomin Zhang.) parameters such as inductances and capacitances.
H. Yu, , G. Liu, and Q. Liu, are with the University of Chinese Academy
of Sciences; Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of
Sciences; Key Laboratory of Applied Superconductivity, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (e-mail: yuhui@mail.iee.ac.cn; liuguole13@mail.iee.ac.cn;
lqi00@mail.iee.ac.cn).
G. Zhang, and L. Jing are with Key Laboratory of Applied
Superconductivity, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing 100190, China (e-mail: gmzhang@mail.iee.ac.cn;
jingliwei@mail.iee.ac.cn).
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

I1 (R 2  R L )(M) 2
Re Zin  R1 
+ M 1 2
R1
. . I2 R2
(R 2  R L ) 2  (L 2  ) (6)
RS C2
Uin L1 L2 RL
I22
AC  R 1  (R 2  R L )
- I12
C1 C2 The imaginary part of the input impedance is:
Fig. 1. A circuit diagram describes the WPT system. 1
(L 2  )(M) 2
1 C2
To simplify the setup, a series-series compensated WPT Im Zin  (L1  )
system was adopted. A simplified circuit diagram describing C1 (R 2  R L ) 2  (L 2 
1 2
)
(7)
the WPT system is shown in Fig. 1. C2
1 I2 2

T
I1 and I2 are the current in the transmitting coil and 1
 (L1  )  (L 2  )
receiving coil, M is the mutual inductance between the coils, C1 C2 I12

IP
C1 and C2 are the capacitance of the compensation capacitors, The amplitude of the phase shift between the current and
L1 and L2 are the inductance of the transmitting coil and the voltage of the transmitting resonator (hereinafter referred
receiving coil, RS, RL, R1 and R2 are the resistance of the to as the phase shift) can be described as:

CR
source, the load, the transmitting resonator, and the receiving 1 1 I2 2
resonator, respectively. The resistance of the resonator (L1  )  (L 2  )
Im Z C1 C2 I12 (8)
includes the resistance of the coil as well as the resistive loss tan | in || || |
Re Z I2 2
associated with the capacitors, the connector and the R1  (R 2  R L ) 2

US
connecting wires. I1
Based on Kirchhoff’s theorem, In this paper, we study how the phase shift change with the
1 frequency to acquire the characteristics and the effects of the
Uin  (R1  jL1  )  I1  jM  I 2 (1)
component parameters.
jC1
AN
III. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH
1
0  (R 2  R L  jL2  )  I 2  jM  I1 (2) Fig. 2(a) gives the photo of the AC source, which was
jC2
supplied by Tektronix AFG3101 function generator and AE
where ω = 2πf is the angular frequency. TECHRON 7796 amplifier. The function generator and the
M

According to the equivalent circuit model, the current ratio amplifier are both common for WPT research in kHz band
could be derived as: [14], [15].
I2 jM (3)

ED

I1 (R  R )  j(L  1 )
C2
2 L 2
Transmitting coil

It is shown that the current ratio is dominated by the angular Styrofoam cooling vessel
frequency ω, the mutual inductance M, the resistance of the
PT

load RL, the component parameters of the receiving resonator, Function generator Superconducting capacitor

R2, L2 and C2. Since the mutual inductance M is constant (the Connecting wire
distance is constant) in this paper, we choose the ratio of the Amplifier
amplitude of the currents in the transmitting coil and receiving
CE

coil (hereinafter referred to as the current ratio) as the

characteristic value to represent the receiving resonator:
| I2 | M (4)
 (a) (b)
| I1 | 1
AC

(R 2  R L ) 2  (L 2  )2 Fig. 2. (a) The AC source. (b) The transmitting coil, the superconducting
C2 capacitor, and the connecting wire.

The input impedance can be defined as:

U
Zin  in
I1
1 (M) 2 (5)
 R1  j(L1  )
C1 (R 2  R L )  j(L 2 
1
)
C2
The real part of the input impedance is:
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Fig. 3. The schematic diagram of the structure of the superconducting
capacitor of one turn.
The transmitting coil and the receiving coil were made of
the same dimension. Each of them consisted of 30 turns of
Bi2223/Ag tapes. The superconducting capacitor consisted of
20 turns of the same tape with two layers in each turn. And the
two ends of each layer were connected. Kapton tapes were
used as the insulation between the HTS tapes. The photo of
the transmitting loop and the superconducting capacitor is
displayed in Fig. 2(b).
Fig. 3 gives the schematic diagram of the structure of the
US
AN
superconducting capacitor of one turn, with certain
dimensions of the windings. The width of the superconducting
tape is 12 mm. The thickness of the superconducting tape is
0.2 mm. The inner radius of the winding is 15 cm. A1 and A2
were the two ends of the inner layer of HTS tape respectively,
M
and the two ends were connected. B1 and B2 were the two
ends of the outer layer of HTS tape respectively, and the two
ends were connected. The inner layer and the outer layer were
ED
the two terminals of the capacitor respectively.
Table I listed the parameters of the resonators. The power
transfer distance in the experiments was fixed at 15 cm, about
1.5 times of the radius. The series resistances of the two
capacitors were 82.77 mΩ and 394.56 mΩ respectively. The
PT
resistances were measured by a LCR meter. Note that in the
value of the resistances, the resistances of the copper
connecting wires were included.
CE
We measured the resistance of the HTS coil also by LCR
testing device. Around 58 kHz, the resistance of the HTS coil
in liquid nitrogen was about 1.387 Ω. This resistance consists
of 2 parts: AC losses in the HTS coil and the resistance of the
AC
copper connecting wire with the HTS coil. The resistor used as
the load of the HTS WPT system (RL in Fig. 1) was 50 Ω.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE RESONATORS
Parameters Values
Cross-section of the HTS tape (mm  mm) 4.1  0.3
Inner radius of the coils (cm) 10
Inductance (μH) 376.35
The capacitance of the superconducting capacitor (nF) 20.851
The capacitance of the conventional polypropylene capacitor (nF) 20.528
To study the effects of the superconducting capacitor on the
HTS WPT system, using the AC source, the superconducting
capacitor, the HTS coils, the load and the polypropylene
capacitors, two cases of WPT experiments were conducted as
follow: 1) the transmitting compensation capacitor and the
receiving compensation capacitor were a superconducting
capacitor and a polypropylene capacitor respectively; 2) the
transmitting compensation and the receiving compensation
capacitor were both polypropylene capacitors.
T
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
IP
A． Demonstration of efficiency increase by a HTS
capacitor
CR
The power transfer efficiencies of HTS WPT system as a
function of transmission frequency for the case of 1) and 2)
were presented by Fig. 4. p
58
Case 1) Using Superconducting transmitting capacitor
Case 2) Using polypropylene transmitting capacitor
The transfer efficiency (%)
56
54
52
50
48
52 54 56 58 60 62
Frequency (kHz)
Fig. 4. The comparison of the transfer efficiency.
The maximum power transfer efficiency in the case of 1)
and 2) was about 58.42% and 55.83%, respectively. The
efficiencies for two cases were both relative low for a HTS
WPT system, but they were the results of the factors that two
cases shared, such as the lower frequency (as mentioned above,
in [14], the efficiency is only 24% when the distance is about
1.5 times of the coil size). Our focus was on the effect of the
superconducting transmitting compensation capacitor reflected
in the differences between the efficiency of two cases. The
maximum transmission efficiency of 1) was about 4.25%
higher than that of case 2). Since the only difference between
case 1) and 2) was the transmitting compensation capacitor,
the increase of the power transfer efficiencies were caused by
the reduction of the resistive losses of the transmitting
compensation capacitor. The increase achieved by
superconducting capacitor is nearly 4 times of the increase
achieved by the method proposed in [13] (1.2%).
In summary, experimental results demonstrate that using
superconducting capacitors as the transmitting compensation
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

capacitor indeed improve the power transfer efficiency of a

The current ratio (%)
WPT system, which is expected in the introduction. The phase shift ()
The transfer efficiency (%)
59
19.6 90
B． Analysis of difference between resonant frequencies
19.4 80 58

The transfer efficiency (%)

The power transfer frequency corresponding to the 19.2 70

The current ratio (%)

The phase shift ()

maximum efficiency in the case of 1) and 2) were 58 kHz and 19.0 60
57

56 kHz, respectively. It shows that the transmission frequency 18.8 50

56
corresponding to the maximum power transfer efficiency of 18.6 40
case 1) was about 3.57% different from that of case 2). In 18.4 30 55
consideration of the stability of the commercial polypropylene 18.2 20
54
capacitor, the difference of the power transfer frequency 18.0 10
corresponding to the maximum power transmission efficiency

T
17.8 0 53
52 54 56 58 60 62 64
might be due to the variation of the superconducting capacitor.
Frequency (kHz)
An electromagnetic field was along with the WPT. The

IP
Fig. 6. The measured results at different frequencies of case 2): the transfer
electromagnetic field would generate forces on the efficiency, the current ratio, and the phase shift angle.
superconducting tapes. The forces resulted in deformations of

CR
the capacitor. The deformations led to the change of the Then we compared the current ratio and the phase shift of
capacitance. In order to adjust the parameters of the case 1) and 2) with the results of the theoretical calculation.
superconducting capacitor in experiments, we didn’t fix the The comparison of the current ratio and the phase shift were
capacitor structure. For practical applications, in which the presented by Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.

US
parameters are given, the superconducting capacitor structure Case 1) Using Superconducting transmitting capacitor
can be fixed and so the deformations can be eliminated. Case 2) Using polypropylene transmitting capacitor
Theoretical calculation
To further study the characteristics of the component 19.5
parameters and their effects on the HTS WPT system, the
AN
19.0
current ratio and the phase shift were measured. Fig. 5 and
The current ratio (%)

Fig. 6 give the measured results at different frequencies of 18.5

case 1) and 2), respectively.
For case 1), the minimum phase shift angle was at 53.55 18.0

kHz; the maximum current ratio was at 58 kHz; the maximum

M

17.5
transfer efficiency was at 58 kHz; the difference was around
7.67%. 17.0
For case 2), the minimum phase shift angle was at 56.5
kHz; the maximum current ratio was at 58 kHz; the maximum
ED

16.5
52 54 56 58 60 62 64
transfer efficiency was at 56.1 kHz; the differences were
Frequency (kHz)
around 0.73% and 3.39%, respectively.
Fig. 7. The comparison of the current ratio.
PT

The current ratio (%)

Case 1) Using Superconducting transmitting capacitor
The phase shift ()
Case 2) Using polypropylene transmitting capacitor
The transfer efficiency(%) 90 1.0
Theoretical calculation
56
19 80
CE

55
70 0.8
The transfer efficiency (%)
The crrent ratio (%)

The phase shift ()

54
60
53 0.6
18 50
tan|∠ in|

40 52
AC

30 51 0.4

20 50
17
10 49 0.2

0 48
55 60
0.0
Frequency (kHz) 52 54 56 58
Fig. 5. The measured results at different frequencies of case 1): the transfer Frequency (kHz)
efficiency, the current ratio, and the phase shift.
Fig. 8. The comparison of the phase shift angle.

The maximum current ratio of case 1), case 2) and the

theoretical calculation were all at 58 kHz. In addition, the
errors of the current ratios between the calculated and the
measured results of case 1) and 2) were both lower than 2%.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

According to (3), the current ratio is related to the angular
frequency ω, the mutual inductance M, the resistance of the
load RL, the component parameters of receiving resonators,
R2, L2 and C2. In other words, the current ratio has nothing to
the transmitting compensation capacitor, which is the only
difference in case 1) and 2). Thus the experimental results
were well matched to the theoretical analysis.
The minimum phase shift angle of case 1), case 2) and the
theoretical calculation were at 53.55 kHz, 56.5 kHz and 56.7
kHz, respectively. The errors of the corresponding frequency
between the theoretical calculation and the measured results of
case 1) and case 2) were around 5.88% and 0.35%,
[5] A. Kurs, A. Karalis, R. Moffatt, J. D. Joannopoulos, P. Fisher, and M.
Soljaˇ ci´ c, “Wireless power transfer via strongly coupled magnetic
resonances,” Science, vol. 317, no. 5834, pp. 83–86, Jul. 2007.
[6] R. J. Sedwick, “Long range inductive power transfer with
superconducting oscillators,” Ann. Phys., vol. 325, no. 2, pp. 287–299,
Feb. 2010.
[7] R. J. Sedwick, “Method and system for long range wireless power
transfer,” U.S. Patent 2012/0 010 079 A1, Jan. 12, 2011.
[8] D. Kim, Y. Chung, H. Kang, C. Lee, H. Kim, H. Jo, Y. Hwang, J. Jang,
and Y. Yoon, “Effects and properties of contactless power transfer for
hts receivers with four-separate resonance coils,” IEEE Trans. Appl.
Supercond., vol. 23, no. 3, p. 5500404, Jun. 2013.
[9] D. W. Kim, Y. D. Chung, H. K. Kang, Y. S. Yoon, and T. K.
Ko,“Characteristics of contactless power transfer for HTS coil based on
electromagnetic resonance coupling,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.,
vol. 22, no. 3, p. 5400604, Jun. 2012.

T
respectively. According to (8), when the current ratios were [10] Y. D. Chung, C. Y. Lee, D. W. Kim, Y. S. Yoon, H. C. Jo, and Y. J.
lower than 0.2 and the receiving resonators were the same Hwang, “Operating characteristics of contactless power transfer from

(Fig. 6 confirms these two points), the frequency
corresponding to the minimum the phase shift was dominated
by the capacitance and inductance of the transmitting [11]
IP
HTS antenna to copper receiver with inserted resonator through large air
gap” IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 24, no. 3, p. 0500205, Jun.
2014.
G. Zhang, H. Yu, L. Jing, J. Li, Q. Liu and X. Feng, “Wireless power

resonator. In consideration of case 1) and 2) sharing the same
transmitting coil (the same inductance), the difference of the
corresponding power transfer frequency was because of the
variation of the superconducting capacitor. As mentioned
above, in practical applications, where the parameters are
given, the variation can be eliminated easily by fixing the
superconducting capacitor structure.
In summary, besides the material of the transmitting
US
CR
transfer using high temperature superconducting pancake coils,” IEEE
Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 24, no. 3, p. 0500205, Jun. 2014.
[12] H. Yu, G. Zhang, L. Jing, J. Li, Q. Liu, Z. Liu and X. Feng, “Wireless
Power Transfer with HTS Transmitting and Relaying Coils,” IEEE
Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 25, no. 3, p. 5000405, Jun. 2015.
[13]

[14]
Moriki, Kenta, et al. "Efficiency study of coaxial contactless power
transmission for electric railway." European Conference on Power
Electronics and Applications IEEE, 2015:1-10.
Ho, S. L., et al. "A Comparative Study Between Novel Witricity and
Traditional Inductive Magnetic Coupling in Wireless Charging." IEEE
AN
Transactions on Magnetics 47.5 (2011): 1522-1525.
capacitor, other factors also affects the HTS WPT system [15] Mao, Shitong, et al. "Wireless power transfer using a field-enhancing
significantly, as mentioned in the introduction. coil and a small-sized receiver with low coupling coefficient." Iet Power
Electronics 9.7(2016):1546-1552.
V. CONCLUSION
M

In summary, we have shown that using the superconducting

capacitor in the WPT system can enable higher transfer
efficiency. The increase of 4.25% in transfer efficiency was
achieved for the WPT system by using the superconducting
ED

capacitor, for distance up to 1.5 times of the radius of the

coils. The experimental results validated the theoretical
analysis. We also found that the capacitance of our
superconducting capacitor is not stable. For the future research,
PT

enhanced performance should be pursued for HTS WPT

system either by exploring stable designs of superconducting
capacitors, and by utilizing superconducting connecting wires.
Using the superconducting capacitor is an optional method to
CE

improve the system and more improvements can be achieved

by integrating it with other methods.
AC

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