Activity of R&D for coated conductors in Japan

Recent activities in the national project on R&D of coated conductors in Japan are reviewed. The present project was started in May 2003 following the last one, which had been conducted from FY1998 to FY2002. The correct project is scheduled until the end of FY2007. The realization of the goals makes the development of the coated conductors move to the applications. The coated conductors were classified into two groups from its architecture. One is that used a textured metal substrate such as RABiTS™ type. On the other hand, the remarkable results have been reported by the R&D group using IBAD buffered substrates. The combination with the PLD method for the YBCO layer reports the highest product values of Ic · L. The highest Ic · L value is 13 230 A m by Fujikura Ltd. Aiming at lower cost processing, TFA-MOD and MOCVD processes have also been investigated on the IBAD substrates. SRL achieved an extremely high Ic value of 413 A in the tape by the TFA-MOD process. The efforts on R&D for long tape process lead to a 8.6 m long tape with 119 A as the end-to-end Ic value.