a high tin intermetallic powder compound according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention as shown in fig4 in the first step 505 elemental manganese and tin having up to 44 micron particle size is weighted to include 81 tin by weight tin and 19 manganese by weight then mixed in a spex 8000 mixer mill or production size shaker under an argon atmosphere depending on the billet size an appropriate amount of phase pure mnsn 2 is prepared in the case of mnsn 2 it was found that a heat treatment condition of 500 u00b0 c for 72 hours is appropriate variation from this temperature and time may be applied to produce nearly phase pure material once the compound has been produced mechanical grinding by a mortar and pestle produces less than 150 micron particle size further processing is performed by jet milling the mnsn 2 compound to less than 5 microns in the second step 510 a catalyst powder compound is prepared in order to promote the reaction of tin with the nb or nb alloy tube copper must be included in the core copper is a necessary catalyst to form nb 3 sn also titanium is included to enhance the critical magnetic field in this process we preferably prepare a cutisn compound containing 38 tin by weight and 10 titanium by weight however other weight percentages of tin and titanium may be used this compound is prepared by weighting elemental.