AbstractIn this paper we present a new method to reduce the toroidal ripple with use of high Tc superconductors. High Tc superconductors can behave as ferromagnetic or diamagnetic materials depending on their magnetic hysteresis. If they are appropriately arranged and magnetized between the toroidal field coils, they possibly decrease the toroidal field ripple. Here, the preliminary design of ITER is taken as an example, and the effect of the high Tc superconductors on the ripple is evaluated. The magnetic induction due to the superconductors is calculated by the current vector potential method based on the critical state model. Several arrangements of the high Tc superconductors were quantitatively examined in order to reduce the ripple. The results obtained by the calculation show that the maximum ripple value can be reduced to be the required value.