Researchers at a Scottish university have demonstrated a 100kW fully superconducting aviation motor that could help pave the way for an electric aircraft.

The prototype system, created by the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory (ASL) at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, represents one of the first attempts in the world to develop a fully superconducting axial-flux motor for aviation.

The motor uses high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology to carry very large electrical currents with almost no resistance when cooled to cryogenic temperatures: 20 Kelvin (K) or −253 °C.