Development of Coated Conductors in Japanese National Project “Development of Fundamental Technologies for HTS Coils”

RE1Ba2Cu3O7-x (REBCO, RE=rare earth) coated conductors have attracted the attention of many scientists due to the high superconducting properties, etc. Due to the great progress of R&D on coated conductors, the activities have shifted to specific applications. The new Japanese national project, named as “Development of Fundamental Technologies for HTS Coils”, started last year aiming for the applications of MRI and medical accelerators. To meet the requirements of those applications, the R&D of REBCO coated conductors (CCs) are being performed with that of coiling technology in parallel. The theme has two sub-themes of “development of long CCs with high in-field performance” and “development of CCs with extremely low heat generation” in this national project.The ambitious goals of these themes are set as intermediate ones due 2016 Mar; the theme of in-field: 100m-500A/cm-w@65K, 3T -850A/cm-w@35K, 10T, the theme of low heat generation: 100m-500 μm of filament width w/ Icfilament inhomogeneity of distribution within 10% and joint resistance below 5nΩ. The final goals of these themes due 2018 Mar. were set as follows; the theme of in-field: 200m-600A/cm-w@65K, 3T -1000A/cm-w@35K, 10T, the theme of low heat generation: 200m-500 μm of filament width w/ Icfilament distribution within 5% and joint resistance below 3nΩ.The objectives, goals and progress of this project will be reviewed in this article. As for the progress, for example, the combination of EuBCO+BHO was found to be effective to improve the in-field performance of PLD derived coated conductors. A 94 m long wire with Icmin of 108A/cm-w@77K, 3T (corresponding to 472A/cm-w @65K, 3T) was successfully fabricated. It is as twice Icmin of the long tape as the highest one in the previous project.