Thermal behaviour of high-temperature superconducting fault current limiters: Application to microlimiters

Fault current limiters are one of the most promising applications of high-temperature superconductors. Two important and interrelated aspects of these devices are their thermal behaviour and their refrigeration. Here we will present some results of our recent researches about this topic concerning the possibility of using superconducting thin-film microbridges as very efficient microlimiters intended to operate at very low powers as could be superconducting microelectronics applications (SQUID based electronics, infrared detectors, etc.).