Development of Low AC Loss TFA-MOD Coated Conductors

TFA-MOD process is expected to be promising for future applications since it can produce high performance YBCO coated conductors (CCs) with low cost. Applying YBCO CCs to the power electric devices such as transformers and power cables, the reduction of alternating current (AC) loss for long wire is necessary. Multi-filamentation process, which is one of the most effective approaches for AC loss reduction, has been developed by the scribing process. We have developed the filamentation process using chemical etching. MOD derived CCs are, however, easily damaged in the chemical etching process due to existence of pores in a YBCO layer, resulting in critical current (Ic)-degradation and weak delamination strength. Consequently, it is difficult to scribe MOD derived CCs into 1mm-wide filaments for long length using the chemical etching process. Accordingly, we have studied a scribing process using an excimer laser without chemical etching. We defined P’ value in this study as a function of irradiated laser power [J] divided by processing speed[m/s]. We studied relationship between the P’ value and the results of scribing. It was found that we could scribe the C.C. with a sufficient depth in the condition of large P’ value. Furthermore, we found that the Ic was degraded with further increase of the P’ value. A 5 mm wide short sample was divided into 10 filaments by the excimer laser scribing process at the P’ of 9[J/(m/s)]. The sample revealed reduction of the hysteresis loss down to 1/10 which could be expected from a theoretical prediction using the numbers of the filaments. Ic-degradation was suppressed as 28%, which was smaller than that of the scribed sample using chemical etching (Ic degradation was 38%). Subsequently, we applied the technique to a 100m long YBCO CC. The hysteresis loss of the 100m long MOD derived CC was reduced down to 1/10 (1/the number of filaments) after the multi-filamentation.