By Amalia Ballarino (CERN)

At the end of October 2025, ICAS delivered to CERN the last of the ten complex MgB₂ cable assemblies needed for the Superconducting Links of the Cold Powering Systems that will be used for connecting the magnets to the power converters in the HL-LHC.

Alongside this, the University of Southampton also delivered the last DFM series cryostats. A total of eight DF cryostats—four DFMs for the Matching Sections and four DFXs for the Triplets—will be installed in the HL-LHC underground areas starting in 2029, and production included one spare for each type.

This marks the completion of the full procurement – including spares – for Work Package 6A, which covers the HL-LHC Cold Powering Systems.

The procurement for the ten Cold Powering Systems (eight to be installed and two spares) also included more than 1000 kilometres of novel MgB₂ wire from ASG Superconductors; ten DFH cryostat units from Uppsala University; REBCO High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) tape from Shanghai Superconductors; novel low-loss static-load flexible cryostats for the Superconducting Links from Cryoworld, and Nb-Ti cables. Production of the HTS Current Leads is taking place in-house and is well advanced, with the full series of resistive parts manufactured in the CERN Main Workshop and available.

Figure 2. Left: last four DFM cryostats being delivered (Amalia Ballarino, CERN). Right: DFX cryostat being tested at CERN (Florence Thompson, CERN)