STRATEGIC RESEARCH AT ORNL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED COATED CONDUCTORS: PART - I

In the RABiTS approach to coated conductor development, successful (both economic and technological) depends on the refinement and optimization of each of three important components: the metal tape substrate, the buffer layer(s), and the HTS layer. Here we will report on the ORNL approach and progress in each of these areas. - Most applications will require metal tapes with low magnetic hysteresis, mechanical strength, and excellent crystalline texture. Some of these requirements are competing. We report on progress in obtaining a good combination of these characteristics on metal alloys of Ni-Cr and Ni-W. - The deposition of appropriate buffer layers is a crucial step. Recently, base research has shown that the presence of a stable sulfur superstructure present on the metal surface is needed for the nucleation and epitaxial growth of vapor-deposited seed buffer layers such as YSZ, CeO$_2$ and SrTiO$_3$. We report on the details and control of this superstructure for nickel tapes, as well as recent results for Cu and Ni-13%Cr. - Processes for deposition of the HTS coating must economically provide large values of the figure-of-merit for conductors, current x length. At ORNL, we have devoted efforts to a precursor/post-annealing approach to YBCO coatings, for which the deposition and reaction steps are separate. We describe motivation for and progress toward developing this approach. - Finally, we address some issues for the implementation of coated conductors in real applications, including the need for texture control and electrical stabilization of the HTS coating.