Study of air heat treatment on Bi-2223/Ag superconducting tapes

Heat treatment has been carried out on commercially available Bi-2223/Ag superconducting tape under various temperature conditions in air. The critical currents (IC) of tape after heat treatment at different annealing temperatures were tested at the liquid-nitrogen temperature. The microstructures and phase constituents of the tapes were investigated by SEM and XRD, respectively. The results indicate that annealing temperature has a very important influence on the superconducting properties of the tapes. When the temperature is above 840 °C, IC value drops dramatically. Furthermore, when the temperature reaches up to 860 °C, the tape loses most of its superconducting property because of the decomposition of the superconducting phase Bi-2223.