Dr. Alexander Otto is a globally recognized leader in the field of advanced superconductors and their applications. He has made many vital contributions to this field since the discovery of high temperature superconductors (HTS) in 1986; at MIT – 4 yrs, at American Superconductor Corp. – 19 yrs, at Florida State U. / National High Magnetic Field Lab – 3 yrs, and at Solid Material Solutions, LLC (SMS) – 5 years, where he continues to drive the emerging HTS industry towards a wide range of commercial products.

He founded SMS, with the primary goal of providing a new corporate venue for applying his business experience and innovative skills to developing commercial HTS technologies and products.

At SMS, he leads the development of a first-of-its-kind approach for strong, narrow HTS wires, based on the Bi2122 superconductor, that is uniquely well suited for producing robust, compact, and high current density solenoid coils of the type that are required to, for example, boost the fields of NMR magnets above the 23 T LTS limit, as well as for producing advanced liquid He free and higher operating field MRI instruments. For advances in particle accelerator and fusion reactor technology, he is driving the development of new kinds of robust cables, based on these Bi2212 wires, that provide superior operating temperature and field ranges, as compared to LTS cables, and that provides for much easier cabling and lower losses in ramped fields, as compared to HTS tape-based cables.

Through his education and international industrial experience, Dr. Otto is highly qualified to take these products through to full commercialization.  Dr. Otto earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science at MIT in the area of HTS chemistry, his undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and he has a minor in Management from the Sloan School of Business at MIT focusing on building technical start-up companies.

At SMS, Dr. Otto operates in a dual role as a strategic manager and technical expert while also promoting SMS at conferences, trade shows, and networking.   He has also been awarded the ASM Engineering Materials Achievement Award, in 2007 “For Leadership in the Development of Commercial High Temperature Superconductor Wire for use in solving key challenges related to the electric power grid and also enabling major advances in military capability”

Dr. Otto has filed 5 HTS-related patent applications since founding Solid Material Solutions. He also holds 27 issued HTS-related patents, as well as a number of patents in other technologies, and he has produced in excess of 50 technical publications in the area of HTS.