Fabrication of low cost YBCO coated conductor using Ag clad Hastelloy substrate

A) Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan; B) CREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Tsukuba 305-0047, Japan

@ Yanwei Ma, K. Watanabe, M. Motokawa

　 The YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) coated conductor, deposited epitaxially on any of a variety of textured substrate-buffer combinations, has attracted intense interest in recent years. Because it is considered to be a possible next-generation high-temperature superconductors beyond oxide powder-in-tube (OPIT) BSCCO 2212 and 2223. However, one of the serious obstacles for applications is its high cost. With the intentions of the reduction of material cost and the improvement of mechanical properties, Ag clad Hastelloy tapes were used as substrate materials for the fabrication of YBCO thin films by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) in high magnetic fields. In this presentation, the crystallinity, surface morphology, and superconducting properties of YBCO films will be described. The experimental results showed that the Jc of YBCO films deposited in high fields was higher than that of YBCO films in the absence of magnetic field. This improvement is believed to be a result of the better crystallinity and grain connectivity.