Development of Long Coated Conductors with High In-field Ic Performance by PLD Method at High Production Rate

We fabricated short samples and a 93 m long coated conductor (C. C.) of EuBa2Cu3O7-δ (EuBCO) with BaHfO3 (BHO) by the IBAD and the PLD methods, which exhibited the high in-field minimum Ic value, (Ic(min)), performance of 141.2 (77 K in 3 T) and 411.3 (65 K in 3 T) A/cm-w for a short sample, and 133.9 (77 K in 3 T) A/cm-w for 93 m long C. C. with 3.6 μm in thickness, respectively. Moreover, this long EuBCO with BHO coated conductor also showed high uniform longitudinal Ic distributions and n-value in magnetic fields. However, the deposition rate for obtaining the high in-field Ic performance was comparatively slow down to 10 μm/h. To realize the low production cost for EuBCO with BHO coated conductors, improvement of the deposition rate of the EuBCO with BHO layer with high Ic is required. To solve this problem, we optimized growth conditions including deposition conditions. One of the objectives of this work was changing the layer growth mode from the vapor-solid (VS) mode to the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) one to fabricate EuBCO with BHO layers for achievement of high production rate and maintaining the high in-field Ic and Jc performance of the films deposited at slow deposition rates. As a result, we fabricated EuBCO with BHO coated conductors at a high deposition rate of about 40 μm/h and production rate of about 10 m/h, which revealed the Ic(min) value of 48.7 A/cm-w at 77 K in 3 T for 1.35 μm in thickness.