Discovered as a general class in 1988 by Hiroshi Maeda and colleagues in Japan, BSCCO was the first high-temperature superconductor containing no rare-earth element.
Its phases span Tc of roughly 33 K (Bi-2201), 96 K (Bi-2212) and 108 K (Bi-2223), the last identified by Tallon et al. in New Zealand within months.
It was the first HTS material made into practical superconducting wires via the silver powder-in-tube process, used in the Holbrook Superconductor Project power cable and in CERN electromagnet current leads.