Conductor material in the vast majority of magnet wire applications, only two materials are deployed. 
Either copper or aluminium. Copper is the most widely used electrical conductor material mainly because of its superior conductivity, reaching as high as 58 - 59MS/s. These values are only a bit lower than the conductivity of Silver, the most conductive (at room temperature) commercially available conductive material. On the other hand, the density of as much as 8,96 g/cm³ and relatively high price (around 10,300 $/to 2022/04/20) are making the copper applications relatively heavy and expensive.

Aluminium, on the other hand, is less expensive and lighter material, compare to copper. However, due to its significantly lower conductivity, the used conductor cross-sections are higher. In order to compensate poorer electrical properties, the volume of electrical components increases. First of all, the increase in volume is intolerable in many fields. Second, the overall material price may be higher than in case of copper due to the bigger housings and laminated cores necessary.

Magnet wires are commercially available in various cross-sections and sizes. Each application and winding process have different demands on the magnet wire. The most typical cross-section is a round wire. The thinnest round wires have a diameter of few micrometres, the heaviest rectangular magnet wires are surpassing 100 mm2 cross-section. For special applications like High Frequency parts or too massive cross-sections, where single conductor have only very limited flexibility, litz wires made of many small conductors are used. Another special case are hollow conductors for the applications, where inner cooling of the conductor is required.

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